The United Kingdom Gambling Commission announced last week that it has levied a hefty £1.6 million fine on Unibet UK’s parent company, Platinum Gaming, for “failing to identify gambling harm and prevent money laundering.”
The Commission was tipped off that a customer of Platinum Gaming’s had been convicted of fraud and had been using the money he stole (£2 million) to place wagers at online gambling sites, including Platinum’s. At Platinum, he lost £629,420.
The Commission laid out the gambler’s history:
This customer opened their account with PGL on 24 February 2017 and was registered as a VIP customer on the 26 February 2017.
This customer gambled frequently, at various times during the day and evening and even overnight. Whilst they were initially winning, high deposits with reversed withdrawals became more apparent, resulting in significant losses over a period of 11 days.
The customer stopped gambling with the operator in March 2017 but resumed their activity in October 2017 where, in 21 days, they were allowed to gamble and lose 10 times the amount they had gambled previously.
Signs of problem gambling activity, such as “high deposits with significant losses” were apparently ignored by Platinum; the Commission said that the person’s pattern of gambling should have resulted in him being cut off.
The Commission did say that Platinum flagged the player as a high-risk customer, but it did not conduct proper due diligence on that players’ source of funds. Even after he left for several months and came back in mid-October, no effort was made to verify from where his money was coming. It was not until late October, nearly three weeks after the player returned to the site, that Platinum asked him to fill out a form about his source of wealth. He responded right away and was then given a source of funds request. That one he did not answer, so his account was closed in early November.
The settlement agreed upon by Platinum and the UKGC is as follows:
a) PGL divesting themselves of gross gambling yield of £629,420.00 it received from the gambling of the customer. This money has been returned to the victim identified whose money was stolen.
b) A payment in lieu of a financial penalty of £990,200 which we will direct to work which accelerates the delivery of the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.
c) Agreement to the Commission’s publication of a statement of the facts in the case.
d) Payment of £9,800 towards the Commission’s investigative costs.
“There were weaknesses in Platinum Gaming’s systems and as a consequence, more than half a million pounds of stolen money flowed through the business,” said the UKGC’s Executive Director, Richard Watson. “This is not acceptable and I would urge all operators to carefully read this case and learn lessons so they don’t make the same mistakes.”
“This is yet another example of us taking firm action against online operators who fail to protect consumers or implement effective safeguards against money laundering,” he added. “We must see the industry stepping up and providing consumers in Great Britain with the safest and fairest gambling market in the world. Where we continue to see failings, we will continue to take action.”
