TGP Europe has become the latest group to fall foul of the UK Gambling Commission after being issued with a £316,250 financial penalty for anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures.
In addition, the operator, which counts 19 websites on a white label basis, including Duelbits, Stake, SportPesa and Sportsbetio, has also received an official warning and had additional conditions added to its licence.
“Additional licence conditions setting out action the licensee must take to ensure thorough due diligence checks are conducted have been added to the operator’s licence,” the regulator said.
Social responsibility shortcomings identified include permitting customers to continue to gamble after hitting multiple safer gambling alerts without intervention, as well as relying on automated interactions, as opposed to human, when such levels were reached.
In addition, it was also said that the group failed to assess the effectiveness of these interactions, or whether additional steps were required.
On an AML basis, the UKGC suggested that TGP Europe did not have “a money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment which adequately addressed risks, such as customers providing false or stolen identification documentation and risks linked to complex or unusually large transactions”.
It was also discovered that the firm had not adequately considered and mitigated the money laundering risks posed by B2B relationships, and had ineffective policies and procedures in relation to due diligence undertaken prior to white label agreements.
“The licensee co-operated with the Commission throughout the investigation and took corrective steps to address the identified failings,” it was added.
Last week, 888 vowed to continue collaborative efforts alongside the UKGC after the William Hill Group received a record £19.2m penalty for an array of social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.
The financial punishment, which surpassed the £17m issued to Entain last year, saw Mr Green pay £3.7m, while William Hill’s online business penalised £12.5m and a further £3m was aligned to the company’s retail operations.
This became the latest UKGC regulatory action issued this year, following 10bet’s £620,000 penalty package, Intouch Games being handed down a financial penalty of £6.1m, a third in four years; TonyBet being penalised £442,750 and Vivaro, trading as VBet, making payments in lieu of a penalty package of £337,631. The Commission also penalised the Kindred Group’s Unibet and 32Red brands a combined £7.1m.
