Danish gambling regulator highlights Danske Licens Spil breaches

It also found that Royal Scandinavian Casino Århus breached money laundering regulations.

Denmark.- The Danish gambling regulator Spillemyndigheden has made two charges against the operator Danske Licens Spil. It found the operator failed to make adequate anti-money laundering (AML) checks.

The first charge cites a failure in checks on one particular player’s history. It said that based on the number of transactions and amount of notifications sent to the Money Laundering Secretariat, the player should have been subject to enhanced checks, which only occurred much later. Failure to carry out sufficient checks on time constituted a breach of section 17, subsection 1 of the Danish Money Laundering Act, the regulator said.

In a second charge, it found that Danske Licens Spil had also breached section 26, subsection 1 of the Money Laundering Act by failing to notify the Danish Anti-Money Laundering Secretariat about two cases of suspected money laundering related to the same customer. 

However, Spillemyndigheden has decided that in both cases it will take no action against the operator because the violations in question “no longer exist”.

Royal Scandinavian Casino Århus breaches

Meanwhile, it has ordered the land-based casino Royal Scandinavian Casino Århus to submit a new risk assessment, business procedures, controls, training material and due diligence procedures after identifying several breaches of Denmark’s Money Laundering Act.

The casino undertook insufficient identification and risk assessment of customer types, including of foreign politically exposed persons and those subject to financial sanctions.

Spillemyndigheden has reported that Danish gambling revenue rose 14 per cent year-on-year to DKK 599m (€80.4m) in March and 4.8 per cent year-on-year to DKK 639m (€85.75m) in April.

Sports betting revenue rose 38 per cent in March to DKK 214m and 11 per cent in April to DKK 247m. Online casino revenue reached DKK 226m (up 14 per cent) in March and DKK 257m (up 6.3 per cent) in April.