British Gambling Commission urges operators to learn from £600,000 fine
The regulator identified anti-money laundering and social responsibility failings at QuinnBet.
QuinnBet fined over £600,000 for anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures
UK.- The online gambling operator QuinnBet (Gibraltar) Limited must pay a £609,104 penalty after a Gambling Commission investigation found a series of anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures. The probe began after a compliance assessment on the operator, which runs quinnbet.com
The Gambling Commission said that social responsibility failures identified included deploying a manual process which allowed people aged between 18 to 24 to spend over deposit limits the operator had set for this potentially vulnerable group. Ineffective controls meant signs of potential gambling harm such as high deposits, short high velocity sessions, increasing stakes, number of bets and high turnover were not captured and flagged for manual review, the regulator said.
In one example cited, a customer was able to place approximately 4,800 bets in one day, and 7,000 the following day without this being identified and flagged. Ineffective controls did not always flag indicators of risk of harm in a timely manner for manual intervention or automated processes – following a large win, one customer’s stakes escalated to the point where over £215,000 was staked in a day with multiple wagers over £5,000 but this was not identified until a report was produced the following day.
The regulator said it found that QuinnBet was not effectively ensuring all customers who met the relevant threshold underwent a light-touch financial vulnerability check.
QuinnBet’s AML failings
As for anti-money laundering (AML) failings, these included the use of insufficient controls to act in a timely manner to identify and mitigate the risk posed by customers who were displaying disproportionate spend. In one example, a customer provided payslips that showed monthly earnings of circa £2,000 yet was able to deposit and lose £9,000 in four days
The operator was also found to have allowed some customers to deposit significant funds without the source of funds (SoF) being established to evidence that the monies were from a legitimate source. There were also insufficient controls to ensure that Suspicious Activity Reports were submitted as soon as practicable after the threshold for suspicion had been met.
John Pierce, the Gambling Commission’s Commission Director of Enforcement, said: “This case highlights the serious consequences of relying on systems and controls that are unable to identify and respond to indicators of harm and financial crime quickly enough. We expect operators to ensure their safeguards are effective in practice to protect consumers and keep crime out of gambling.
“In this case, the operator recognised the issues and took immediate action to make significant improvements to its systems and controls. This included strengthening their AML policies and procedures and improving how they identify and respond to indicators of harm.
“We expect operators to learn from this case and read the public statement to ensure that they do not make the same mistakes. Our key focus is on ensuring that operators meet the standards we expect and, where they fall short, we will take regulatory action where necessary.”
The Gambling Commission announced the settlement just two days after it published the result of an enforcement action against a licensed gaming hall operator fined for failing to comply with self-exclusion requirements. The Gambling Commission fined Holland Park Leisure Limited £150,000 and ordered it to undergo a third-party audit to review its policies, procedures and controls and the training and competency of its staff.
