UKGC suspends Triplebet licence

Matchbook operator was found to have made serious failings relating to social responsibility and money laundering.

UK.- Triplebet has had its licence suspended by the UK Gambling Commission following social responsibility and money laundering failings.

The regulator has also served the operator with a £739,099 fine.

The UKGC found serious failings in Triplebet’s approach to anti-money laundering, the monitoring of business relationships and due diligence checks into members of gambling syndicates.

Serious failings were also found in the operator’s approach to social responsibility.

Neil McArthur, Gambling Commission Chief Executive, said: “We have repeatedly made it clear that operators must put player protection at the forefront of their activities and ensure that they have effective anti-money laundering processes in place”. 

The UKGC stated that a player from Triplebet’s Matchbook brand was able to gamble a large amount of money over the course of two days without any interaction whatsoever.  

Another registered user, who played and then self-excluded on the same day, was subsequently able to reopen his account six months later, before playing for 10 hours a day on consecutive days and losing a large sum before self-excluding again, without any monitoring or interaction taking place.

Furthermore, the UKGC states that “one of Triplebet’s main customers” was a syndicate, whose lead contributor was a professional gambler, who also held a beneficial interest in Triplebet itself.

Over an 18-month period from November 2016, the syndicate matched bets on the Exchange totalling in excess of $55million, without any documented risk assessment. 

“We will not hesitate to use our regulatory powers, including the suspension and revocation of licences, if we need to do that to protect consumers and the public from gambling related harm”, McArthur said.

“Any operator that doubted that we were ready and willing to use the full range of our regulatory powers should think again. All operators need to learn the lessons from this case and our other enforcement cases,” he added.

Since January the Commission has suspended the operating licences of Stakers Limited, Addison Global Limited and International Multi-Media Entertainments Limited.