The UK Gambling Commission has fined online gambling company Spreadex Limited £1.36 million (€1.6 million) for anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility failings.
According to the Commission’s statement, Spreadex was fined following a recent investigation which uncovered the breaches of its licensing conditions.
The investigation revealed social responsibility failures including:
Using ineffective financial alerts allowing customers to gamble large amounts in short period of time
Using those same ineffective financial alerts to identify potential problem gamblers
Not recording customer evaluations
Ineffective customer interactions
According to the report one Spreadex customer deposited £1.7 million (€2.01 million) and lost £500,000 (€591,854) in the space of a single month. The company had reached out to the customer but had decided against limiting the account despite this being the advised procedure according to UKGC guidelines.
Anti-money laundering failures discovered during the investigation included:
Allowing a customer with a £25,000 (€29,591) financial deposit alert to increase this to £100,000 (€118,366) based on a self-declaration of income and an open-source check
Allowing a customer to deposit £365,000 (€432,173) and lose £284,000 (€336,266) over a period of 3 months with no Source of Funds established
Allowing a customer to continue depositing after providing redacted bank statements in response to a request for evidence of Source of Funds
Speaking of the fine, Leanne Oxley, Gambling Commission Director of Enforcement and Intelligence, said:
“Whilst it is disappointing to see anti-money laundering and social responsibility breaches occur despite our extensive published cases highlighting similar failures, we note the swift and robust action the Licensee took to bring itself back to compliance. We expect similar commitment and engagement across the gambling sector.”
Source: https://gamblingindustrynews.com/
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