Compliance issues have put three of the UK’s online operators in trouble. The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) has found out multiple compliance shortcomings for BGO Entertainment, GAN Plc, and NetBet Enterprises Ltd after reviewing the licenses.
The UKGC announced that all of the operators have been taken to the woodshed for compliance issues like insufficient social responsibility (SR), Anti-money laundering (AML), and source of funds (SOF) practices.
The UKGC found SR/AML policy failures for over a two-year period for BGO including inadequate risk assessment for online customers. In one case, the BGO allowed a customer to deposit over £100K despite the customer had a salaried income of less than £20k.
BGO did not intervene when a customer deposited £106,800 over a 19-day period. It included a single day deposit of £6500 13 times between 12 am-1 am. There was no call made to the customer from responsible gambling staff and chose to send an email later.
BGO needs to apply enhanced due diligence to its 125 top customers in terms of deposits and losses.
It is not new for BGO, previously the operator was fined for £300k for misleading advertisement.
GAN had issues with WinStar Casino. GAN displayed cartoon imagery to promote casino products in violation of prohibiting imagery that might appeal to kids.
GAN also failed in AML compliance and accepted bank statements from a customer in a different name as SOF evidence. In another case, it failed with an inadequate assessment of cryptocurrency. The operator was also spanked for no adequate measures and arrangements for responsible gambling.
The GAN has been ordered to deposit £100k to UKGC’s harm-reduction strategy. It would forfeit £46,754 for failing and £6k to cover the cost of review.
NetBet also had similar compliance issues and failed to arrange measures for the customers who show obvious signs of problem gambling. The operator also did not have an adequate assessment of SOF.
The operator has been penalized by £748k and ordered to pay £9k to cover the cost of review.
UKGC has warned all the operators to follow due diligence and said that they would continue to monitor and review licenses with proactive compliance and enforcement work.