Aspire Global agrees £1.4m settlement with Gambling Commission over historical failings
Regulator found one customer was allowed to deposit and lose £7,000 in four hours, while another previously self-excluded player was able to open multiple new accounts
Aspire Global has been slapped with a £1.4m penalty by the Gambling Commission over social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) failures between May 2023 and October 2024.
The settlement, which will be paid to socially responsible causes, totalled £1,407,834 following the regulator’s investigation.
Aspire Global operates a host of white labels in the UK, with the Gambling Commission stating it runs 58 platforms.
The company has held a sports betting licence since September 2017, an online casino licence since November 2014 and a bingo licence since August 2019.
On the social responsibility front, the regulator said Aspire Global did not have effective systems in place to prevent customers spending large amounts of money in short periods without adequate checks.
In one case, a customer was able to deposit and lose around £7,000 in just over four hours in the early hours of the morning.
“This player was able to play through the backstop in place at that time, due to a system error which failed to prevent the customer from depositing above the backstop limit,” the Gambling Commission said.
A further manual review of the customer did not flag they had played through the backstop trigger either.
Another example saw the operator fail to conduct a safer gambling interaction after one player, who was a student, lost £6,000 in 48 hours. Contact was made via telephone but only after the daily loss limit of £5,000 in 24 hours was reached.
Overall, the regulator ruled that 176 customers were impacted by a daily loss limit not working correctly due to a system error. Those customers deposited a combined £220,334 over the daily loss limit.
Other major failings included allowing one customer to open a “significant” number of gambling accounts despite the fact they had previously self-excluded.
Another player, who had had an account closed due to suspicious activity, was allowed to open another account with an Aspire Global brand.
Shortcomings in communications, including only sending two generic safer gambling emails after one customer staked around £35,000 In two weeks, were flagged in the investigation.
Elsewhere, one customer was able to increase their monthly loss limit from £1,000 to £4,000 with “no justification recorded” following an online chat consisting of a series of closed questions.
Looking through the AML policies at Aspire Global, the Gambling Commission said the processes were “too reliant on financial thresholds”.
The regulator also noted that when customers hit higher risk scores, they were not subject to a manual enhanced customer due diligence (ECDD) check until a financial trigger was hit.
In fact, one customer who reached a financial trigger did not have an ECDD review conducted until a week later.
The Gambling Commission said the above failings were “serious and potentially impacted on the licensing objectives”.
The shortcomings were unearthed in an initial compliance assessment carried out in May 2023. A further assessment was completed in December 2023, with more failings found, including the same type as in the initial investigation.
The Gambling Commissions said Aspire Global had fully co-operated with the investigation, agreed to a third-party audit and accepted its failings at an early stage.
This is the second regulatory action from the UK regulator Aspire Global has faced. The firm previously paid a £237,600 penalty for AML failings in November 2022.
John Pierce, Gambling Commission director of enforcement, 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.”
An Aristocrat spokesperson said: “Aristocrat, and all of its subsidiaries, takes compliance with our obligations extremely seriously.
“We welcome the regulator’s findings that AG Communications fully cooperated in the review, has put in place a remediation plan and voluntarily agreed to a third party audit to assess compliance with certain elements of the relevant Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice. The implementation of the remediation plan is well underway.
“AG Communications is firmly committed to having the most effective controls in place, in accordance with the relevant licensing objectives.
“We will continue to make adjustments to our operational procedures and seek opportunities to ensure they are as robust as possible. “