Online gambling company 888 UK Ltd. has been fined £9.4 million (€11.26 million) by the UK Gambling Commission following an investigation which uncovered anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility failings.
UK Gambling Commission Fines 888 UK £9.4 Million for Putting Vulnerable Customers in Harm's WayThis is the second time that the company has been hit with a significant fine for social responsibility failings. Back in 2017, 888 was fined a total of £7.8 million (€9.3 million) for similar infractions that included a failure to protect vulnerable customers from the harms of problem gambling.
UK Gambling Commission Fines 888 UK £9.4 Million for Putting Vulnerable Customers in Harm's Way“The circumstances of the last enforcement action may be different but both cases involve failing consumers – and this is something that is not acceptable. Today’s fine is one of our largest to date, and all should be clear that if there is a repeat of the failures at 888 then we have to seriously consider the suitability of the operator to uphold the licensing objectives and keep gambling safe and crime-free.
Consumers in Britain deserve to know that when they gamble, they are participating in a leisure activity where operators play their part in keeping them safe and are carrying out checks to ensure money is crime-free.”
According to the Commission’s statement, 888’s social responsibility failures included:
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UK Gambling Commission Fines 888 UK £9.4 Million for Putting Vulnerable Customers in Harm's Way
- Failing to implement mandatory checks after a customer had deposited £40k
- Failing to contact a player who lost £37k over a six week period UK Gambling Commission Fines 888 UK £9.4 Million for Putting Vulnerable Customers in Harm's Way
- No restrictions placed on accounts where risks were identified
- Customer allowed to open three new accounts despite having 11 accounts already under restrictions
AML failures discovered in the investigation included:
- Establishing a policy where customers could deposit £40k before source of funds checks were carried out
- Accepting a customer’s word on source of funds without viewing the required documents to verify
- Allowing a customer to spend over £65k in 5 months without checking source of funds
- Not implementing checks on time — one customer was checked three weeks after the 10-day trigger and had already lost £15k during that time.
The UKGC noted that the company co-operated with the investigation team and has take the necessary steps to correct the issues identified.
