Gamesys Operations Limited has been ordered to pay a £6m penalty by the UK Gambling Commission after an investigation discovered social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.
The operator of 16 websites, including ballycasino.co.uk, doublebubblebingo.com, jackpotjoy.com and megawayscasino.com, will also undergo a third-party audit to make sure AML and safer gambling policies, procedures and controls are being implemented effectively.
Following a compliance assessment in May 2022, the UKGC discovered several social responsibility and AML failures at Gamesys taking place between November 2021 and July 2022.
Kay Roberts, Executive Director of Operations at UKGC, commented: “Our focus as a regulator is to ensure that operators are employing policies and procedures which make gambling fair, safe and crime-free.
“We take this responsibility extremely seriously and whenever we find failures in policies and procedures then the business can expect significant regulatory action.”
In terms of social responsibility failures, the commission noted that the operator was “not always identifying customers at risk of experiencing harms associated with gambling”.
An example included “placing inappropriate reliance on checks which indicate whether a customer had a historical individual voluntary arrangement or been bankrupt or insolvent as a sign of gambling harm”.
The UKGC also stated that Gamesys did not always have “a system of deposit limits which, for some customers, did not identify risks of harm quickly enough” as one customer was able to deposit £8,255 within three days of opening an account, another lost £5,968 within five weeks of opening account and another lost £17,482 within 34 days of opening an account.
Also under social responsibility, the commission’s investigation found that Gamesys were “not always interacting with customers who may be at risk of or experiencing harms associated with gambling”.
The UKGC highlighted that examples they discovered of this included only interacting with one customer after they had lost almost £10,000 and that a “‘responsible gambling interaction’ involved the recommendation of new games and promotions”.
In addition, only one responsible gambling interaction was carried out with a customer who had lost £19,709 over five months, and “records of interactions, considerations, and rationale for decisions were not always recorded in sufficient detail, despite this being specified in the Licensee’s responsible gambling procedures”.
Regarding AML failures, the UKGC discovered through its investigation that in certain circumstances, some Gamesys customers were “able to evade some of the licensee’s AML triggers/thresholds and go on to spend significant sums without AML checks being conducted”.
As such, one customer deposited £14,585 in 28 weeks, another deposited £18,884 in just over six months and another deposited £34,280 in five and a half months.
The commission also noted that the operator conducted “inadequate customer due diligence” and was “over-reliant on third party information” or customer’s verbal assurances, as one customer deposited £25,000 over three months, another deposited £58,000 in six months and another deposited £65,000 in six months.
The UKGC also stated that Gamesys had “a ‘reinvestment of winnings policy’ which was insufficient to mitigate the risk that deposited funds could be from illegitimate sources and not just from previous winnings”.
As a result of the findings, the commission has imposed a warning under section 117 (a) of the Gambling Act 2005, alongside a total financial penalty of £6,071,292 (which includes a divestment amount of £165,042) and has also attached an additional condition to the licensee’s operating licence under section 117(1)(b) of the act.
The UKGC added that Gamesys cooperated with the commission throughout the investigation. The operator also advised that it had taken corrective steps.
The commission also added that it found “no evidence of criminal monies being deposited by the specific customers looked at during its review”.
