The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has issued another regulatory financial penalty against a betting firm this month, this time targeting The Football Pools.
One of the UK’s oldest betting firms, the Pools, was found to have failed to meet social responsibility and money laundering licence standards in a Commission investigation and has subsequently paid a penalty of £375,000.
On AML, the Commission concluded that the firm’s policy in this area was not up to scratch, being over-reliant on financial triggers as a way of identifying money laundering risks.
These triggers were also raised in the UKGC’s assessment of the operator’s social responsibility and safer gambling policy, finding that risk profiles were created months after triggers were reached instead of straight after.
In addition, the Commission found that hard stops were not automatically applied when AML thresholds were reached, and manual reviews ‘did not always occur promptly’.
Internal systems for identifying problem gambling were also deemed ineffective, and the UKGC’s investigation found ‘no evidence of sufficient evaluation of individual customers’ interactions’.
John Pierce, Commission 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 whilst 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.
“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.”
As noted above, The Football Pools has paid the UKGC a penalty of £375,000 as a result of the investigation, and the Commission has reminded other betting operators of the need to have a robust AML and safer gambling (SG) policy, as well as to regularly test policies, procedures and controls.
The penalty comes just a week after Corbett Bookmakers, an independent retail betting company, was charged a £686,070 penalty after a regulatory investigation found insufficient AML and SG procedures in its betting shops.
