Gambling Commission allocates AG Communications fine to social responsibility causes
The British regulator issued the fine for breaches of social responsibility and anti-money laundering procedures.
UK.- The Gambling Commission has announced that it will assign a £1.4m penalty against AG Communications to social responsibility causes. It issued the penalty for breaches of social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures, which included a lack of proactive intervention in cases where players made large spends in a short period of time.
The regulator cited an example of a player who lost £6,000 in 48 hours without receiving any safer gambling interaction until they reached their daily loss limit of £5,000. Another case involved a player who deposited and lost £7,000 in four hours by taking advantage of a system error that disabled backstop limits. A manual review also failed to identify the case. Finally, another customer was able to open several accounts despite having previously self-excluded.
The regulator also said that AG had been overly reliant on financial thresholds for AML controls. Medium and high AML risk scores did not guarantee manual Enhanced Customer Due Diligence (ECDD) checks if they did not also hit a financial trigger. There were also delays in the implementation of the checks. In one case, an ECDD check was done a week after the alert.
John Pierce, the Gambling Commission’s director of enforcement and intelligence, said: “This case marks the second occasion that this operator has been subject to enforcement action. Its failure to uphold anti-money laundering standards, delays in necessary interventions, and deficiencies in social responsibility measures are wholly unacceptable.
“Today’s outcome underscores the gravity of these breaches. It is essential that operators not only implement and maintain robust anti-money laundering policies, procedures, and controls but also act swiftly and decisively in response to any indications of suspicious activity. Effective social responsibility measures must be in place at all times to ensure that consumers identified as at risk receive timely and appropriate intervention.
“This case stands as a clear warning to all operators that repeated regulatory failings will result in increasingly stringent enforcement action.”
AG has implemented an action plan to remedy failings and fully mitigate customer risk. It cooperated fully with the regulator’s investigation and commissioned a third-party audit to ensure AML and safer gambling compliance.
Meanwhile, the Gambling Commission’s new “light-touch” financial risk checks will now reach more British gamblers from this month as the monthly net deposit threshold has been reduced from £500 to £150 as of February 28. It’s estimated the checks will now apply to around 25 per cent of all gamblers.
The British gambling minister Baroness Twycross has confirmed the date for the introduction of the new mandatory gambling levy in the UK. The minister from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said the levy to fund problem gambling research, education and treatment would start on April 6.
