Land-based casino operators to pay £5m for regulatory failures
Three land-based casino operators will pay £5m after a Gambling Commission investigation found anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures.Summary
Three nation-wide casino operators owned by Rank Group PLC—Grosvenor Casinos Limited, Grosvenor Casinos (GC) Limited, and Gaming Group Limited—which run 51 casinos across Great Britain, will pay £5 million following a Gambling Commission investigation into anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures. The operators must also undergo a third-party audit to ensure effective implementation of anti-money laundering and safer gambling policies, procedures, and controls. The anti-money laundering failures included not updating policies to reflect 2020 Money Laundering Regulations changes, allowing inconsistent decisions for customers with elevated money laundering risk, unclear policies that led to inappropriate risk levels and high-risk funds being used without scrutiny, and failure to carry out enhanced customer due diligence checks when required. Social responsibility failures included not carrying out safer gambling interactions with a customer who lost £50,000, having no record of safer gambling interactions with a customer who won approximately £260,000 in a short period and then lost around £250,000 in 12 days, and not carrying out safer gambling interactions with a customer returning from self-exclusion until they had lost £25,000. The full £5 million settlement will be directed to the Government’s Consolidated Fund. Sue Young, Executive Director of Operations, said that larger enforcement cases are often associated with online gambling but the risks of anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures are equally alive in the land-based sector, and advised all premises-based operators to review this case to avoid making the same mistakes and facing costly Commission action.
(Source：Google News)