Online gambling company 888 UK Ltd. has been fined £9.4 million (€11.26 million) by the UK Gambling Commission following an investigation which uncovered anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility failings.
888 UK Ltd., which operates a total of 78 gambling websites including 888.com, 888casino.com, 888sport.com, and 888bingo.com, has also received an official warning and must now undergo extensive independent auditing following the investigation.
This is the second time that the company has been hit with a significant fine for social responsibility failings. Back in 2017, 888 was fined a total of £7.8 million (€9.3 million) for similar infractions that included a failure to protect vulnerable customers from the harms of problem gambling.
Speaking of the latest fine for 888 UK, Gambling Commission Chief Executive Andrew Rhodes said:
“The circumstances of the last enforcement action may be different but both cases involve failing consumers – and this is something that is not acceptable. Today’s fine is one of our largest to date, and all should be clear that if there is a repeat of the failures at 888 then we have to seriously consider the suitability of the operator to uphold the licensing objectives and keep gambling safe and crime-free.
Consumers in Britain deserve to know that when they gamble, they are participating in a leisure activity where operators play their part in keeping them safe and are carrying out checks to ensure money is crime-free.”
According to the Commission’s statement, 888’s social responsibility failures included:
- Failing to identify players at risk of harm
- Failing to implement mandatory checks after a customer had deposited £40k
- Failing to contact a player who lost £37k over a six week period
- Allowing an NHS worker they knew earned £1,400 per month a monthly deposit cap of £1,300
- No restrictions placed on accounts where risks were identified
- Customer allowed to open three new accounts despite having 11 accounts already under restrictions
AML failures discovered in the investigation included:
- Establishing a policy where customers could deposit £40k before source of funds checks were carried out
- Accepting a customer’s word on source of funds without viewing the required documents to verify
- Allowing a customer to spend over £65k in 5 months without checking source of funds
- Not implementing checks on time — one customer was checked three weeks after the 10-day trigger and had already lost £15k during that time.
The UKGC noted that the company co-operated with the investigation team and has take the necessary steps to correct the issues identified.
Ciaran has been working within the Gambling Industry as a deep analyst since 2019. His deep knowledge and understanding of all the gambling regulations, and processes makes him a true asset, and an always valuable point of view for Gambling Industry News, allowing us to cover every topics from a brand new perspective.
