BGO, NetBet and GAN hit with UKGC action over social responsibility and AML failures
Additional licence conditions imposed by regulator as BGO agrees £2m payment to national gambling harm strategy
BGO, GAN and NetBet will pay regulatory penalties totalling £2.8m after Gambling Commission (UKGC) investigators identified failings in social responsibility and AML standards at all three companies.
The trio were hit with the enforcement action after UKGC licence reviews, which have led to additional licence conditions for both BGO and GAN.
BGO will pay £2m to the national strategy for the prevention of gambling harms after investigators unearthed a lack of effective policies and procedures to deal with at-risk players over a two-year period to March 2020.
The UKGC said the online casino operator failed to have “effective and adequately resourced” AML controls in place over the same timeframe.
In one example, a customer deposited in excess of £100,000 and lost more than £65,000 in just seven days. No source-of-funds checks were made, despite the operator being made aware that the player’s annual income was less than £20,000.
As a result, BGO will now be subject to additional licence conditions including carrying out extra social responsibility and enhanced due diligence checks on 250 of its top high-value customers every 12 months.
London-based solutions provider GAN was similarly found to have ineffective AML procedures in place over a 12-month period, while also failing to display warnings concerning the illegality of underage gambling and non-compliant customer interaction guidance.
GAN will pay £146,000 to the national strategy and be subject to additional licence conditions that include continual review of its AML and social responsibility policies, as well as extra training of its PML holders and senior staff.
Meanwhile, sports betting operator NetBet failed to carry out enhanced due diligence checks on at-risk customers and employed an ineffective source-of-funds review strategy over a six-month period.
No additional licence conditions were imposed, although NetBet accepted there were “historic weaknesses” in its AML and responsible gambling policies.
It has since made several changes to both policies, including the implementation of automatic limits on at-risk players.
The firm agreed to surrender £748,000 to the national strategy to prevent gambling harm.
“Our recent investigations uncovered a variety of consumer protection and AML failings at each of these three operators and as a result we are using a range of enforcement tools against them,” UKGC executive director Richard Watson said.
“We will continue to crack down on failing operators through our tough and proactive compliance and enforcement work,” he added.