Online gambling company LeoVegas has been fined £1.32 million (€1.57 million) by the UK Gambling Commission for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.
This is the second time in four years that LeoVegas has been fined by the UKGC — in 2018, the company was fined £600,000 (€717,349) for advertising and marketing failings. The company was also penalized just over a year ago by Spelinspektionen (Sweden’s regulator) for allowing deposits by players with links to organized crime.
LeoVegas – which runs leovegas.com, slotboss.co.uk, pinkcasino.co.uk, betuk.com and 21.co.uk – has also been issued with an official warning and must undergo an extensive audit. The audit is to determine that the company and its staff are effectively implementing its anti-money laundering and social responsibility policies, procedures and controls.
Speaking of the fine, Leanne Oxley, Gambling Commission Director of Enforcement and Intelligence, said:
“We identified this through focused compliance activity and we will continue to take action against other operators if they do not learn the lessons our enforcement work is providing.
“This case is a further example of operators failing to protect customers and failing to be alive to money laundering risks within their business.”
According to the UKGC’s announcement the responsible gambling failures included:
- Setting inaccurate spend triggers for Safer Gambling Team customer review
- Setting cooling off trigger point at six hours
- Failing to interact with customers exhibiting indicators of harm and problem gambling
- Failing to adhere to the UKGC’s 2019 guidance on customer interaction
Anti-money laundering (AML) failures included:
- Setting unreasonably high AML trigger thresholds
- Relying on ineffective threshold triggers and inadequate information relating to customer’s wealth and ability to gamble large amounts
- Allowing customers to spend significant amounts in a short period of time without checking financial backgrounds
Based in London, Natasha is a former sports journalist with experience working for some of the biggest athletes & brands in the world of sports and iGaming.
