The Pools agrees £375,000 settlement with the Gambling Commission
Operator will also cover the regulator’s investigation costs after the GC found it had breached social responsibility and anti-money laundering rules between September 2022 and August 2023
The Pools will pay a £375,000 settlement after an investigation by the Gambling Commission (GC) uncovered historical social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) failures at the operator.
The offences occurred between September 2022 and August 2023, when the operator was known as The Football Pools.
The entirety of the settlement will go towards socially responsible causes.
Following a compliance assessment, the GC initiated its review under section 116 of the Gambling Act 2005.
Both paragraphs outline that operators must have sufficient policies in place to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing and that those policies are implemented effectively, reviewed regularly and “revised appropriately”.
The operator also was found to have breached various points of the Social Responsibility Code Provision (SRCP) 3.4.3 relating to customer interaction.
The Pools “accepted” it violated certain LCCP requirements due to an AML policy that was overly reliant on financial triggers to determine whether customers were a money laundering or terrorist financing risk.
The GC’s report also stated there were no automatic hard stops in place when AML thresholds were reached, with The Pools also failing to evaluate “in a timely manner” whether a customer should have been prevented from making deposits. Officials also found that customer risk profiles were either not established, or created later than expected.
On average, it took the operator 25 days to set up a customer risk profile after a financial trigger had been hit.
According to the GC’s statement on the settlement, the operator’s low staffing levels meant there was also a significant backlog of customer risk profiles still waiting to be created.
The Pools has conceded its failings in relation to adhering to multiple sections of the SRCP, including a failure to implement an effective internal system to sufficiently identify customers eligible for safer gambling interventions.
The operator proved ineffective at delivering safer gambling messages to players that had opted out of marketing, leading to a delay in interacting with customers exhibiting potential markers of harm.
The regulator’s review also found customers placing bets at a “high velocity” or those betting large sums were not identified early enough, nor was The Pools’ social responsibility system able to identify long periods of gambling as a potential marker of harm.
In one instance, a customer deposited around £4,100 within two weeks of registering, triggering a financial alert in the process, but The Pools did not identify the player as someone eligible for a safer gambling interaction.
Alongside the £375,000 settlement, The Pools has also agreed to the details of the assessment being published and to cover the GC’s investigation costs.
The regulator noted that The Pool’s AML failings “directly imperil the first licensing objective of ‘preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder’”.
However, the GC did acknowledge The Pools implemented a plan to rectify the failings and offered full cooperation throughout the investigation.
John Pierce, the GC’s director of enforcement, said: “This case demonstrates that the licensee’s approach to anti-money laundering risk profiling and monitoring was insufficient, allowing high-risk customers to continue gambling before completing necessary enhanced due diligence checks.
“In addition, the licensee was over-reliant on financial alerts that while preventing significant losses meant it failed to engage in a timely manner with some customers who were potentially experiencing other markers of gambling-related harm such as time spent gambling and high velocity spend.”
Pierce added that the regulator won’t hesitate to intervene again if needed, noting: “While it is recognised that necessary improvements have been made by the licensee following the completion of the compliance assessment, the Commission will take further action if these standards are not maintained.”
The Pools has been approached by EGR for comment.