Recent enforcements by UK Gambling Commission points to inadequate Source Of Wealth and affordability checks

The Gambling Commission recently announced that a fine of £1.3m had been levied against White Hat Gaming for failings in anti money laundering and responsible gambling requirements. Amongst other things the Gambling Commission identified a failure to conduct adequate Source of Wealth checks for  two customers who had each lost £70,000. In one of those cases the operator had reviewed bank statements which highlighted a deposit for £30,000. The customer had stated that this was winnings from another operator however this was not verified by White Hat Gaming.

Source of Wealth checks are a key element of AML Enhanced Due Diligence checks and affordability is a key element of Responsible Gambling checks. In independent health checks and training we have conducted we have found that staff in both AML and Responsible Gambling teams do not fully understand the information they have requested from customers and particularly those customers who have complex financial arrangements. These customers typically include those with income and benefits derived from Directorships of  limited companies and Limited Liability Partnerships, as well as unexplained/unusual transactions often described as loans.

These deficiencies have been identified in a number of other enforcement actions by the UK Gambling Commission over the last year and a summary of some of these are provided below.  A ‘single customer view’ has been called for across operators however in each of these cases the necessary information was available to the individual operators.

Operator	Penalty	Key Findings
Triple Bet (t/a Matchbook)	£740,000	Failure to establish Source Of Wealth, including: a customer who had put at risk £2m in a day
BGO Entertainment Ltd	£2m	Failure to establish Source of Wealth including: Customer who deposited £100k in a week with only £20k salary
Games Account Network	£150,000	Failure to establish Source of Wealth including: Inadequate scrutiny of bank statements Inadequate consideration of use of cryptocurrency
NetBet Enterprises Ltd	£750,000	Failure to conduct Enhanced Due Diligence including: Inadequate scrutiny of financial information provided
PT Entertainment Services	£3.5m*	Failure to undertake affordability checks
Ceasers Entertainment	£13m	Failure to undertake affordability and source of wealth checks including: A customer allowed to lose £18,000 in a year despite identifying herself as a self-employed nanny Inadequate source of funds checks on, a customer who identified as a retired postman and lost £15,000 in 44 days not obtaining adequate evidence of source of funds for a politically exposed person (PEP) who lost £795,000 during a 13-month period
Betway	£11.6m	Failure to undertake affordability and source of wealth checks including: failure to carry out source of funds checks on a ‘VIP’ customer who deposited over £8m and lost over £4m during a four-year period failure to carry out effective social responsibility interactions with a customer who deposited and lost £187,000 in two days

*£3.5m is the amount indicated by  the UK Gambling Commission that it would have applied in this case had the operator not surrendered its licence.

Operators who are concerned that their teams may not have sufficient knowledge to undertake these assessments may wish to know we have an online course aimed at addressing these issues which has received very favourable feedback from delegates. This course can also be run as an in-house course.

By Neil on February 2, 2021   /   Blog