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The UK Gambling Commission has penalised Stockholm-listed online gambling operator LeoVegas £1.32m for anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility failures.
LeoVegas was also given a warning and conditions on its licence in a penalty announced today (August 3).
The conditions call for it to conduct a third-party audit within 12 months of the commission’s review, to ensure the company is following AML and social responsibility regulations.
The company set financial triggers for AML checks that were too high and “unrealistic to effectively manage money laundering and terrorist financing risks”, the Gambling Commission said.
It relied too heavily on ineffective triggers and faulty information on how much a player should be allowed to spend based on income, wealth and any other risk factors.
LeoVegas also allowed significant levels of gambling to take place within a short period of time without having information about players’ financial situations, the commission said.
Spending triggers for potential intervention were also significantly higher than the average player spend, without adequate explanation why this was the case, the regulator wrote.
The company also set six hours of gambling as the point at which players were to take a 45-minute cooling-off period without explanation of how this was an appropriate amount of time.
LeoVegas also did not follow its own policies on intervening with customers displaying markers of harm, including late-night gambling sessions, denied deposits, cancelled withdrawals and long playing sessions, the regulator wrote.
The Gambling Commission said it found no evidence of criminal spending among the players reviewed during its monitoring period, and it said that LeoVegas cooperated with investigators and has since taken “appropriate remedial action to correct its failings".
In May, MGM Resorts said it had agreed to acquire LeoVegas for $607m (£499m).
In April 2021, LeoVegas was fined 2m kronor (£160,400) for failures in AML and know your customer (KYC) policies in Sweden.
In October 2021, the Danish Gambling Authority reprimanded LeoVegas for what it called inadequate player due diligence and AML failings.
