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Bet365 will pay £582,000 to settle failures in its anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility policies, the UK’s Gambling Commission said today (April 4).
Hillside UK Gaming, which holds a licence for the UK-based company’s bingo and casino products, will pay £343,000 and Hillside UK Sports, which holds a betting licence, will pay £239,000, the regulator said.
The company’s enhanced customer due diligence and know your customer (KYC) checks were ineffective at managing AML risks, and bet365 failed to undertake financial sanctions checks on new players before their first deposits, the commission said.
It failed to undertake independent verification checks and over-relied on players’ annual self-verification of KYC information, and its procedure documents contained insufficient detail on who might be considered “at risk” and “not at risk” in gambler risk profiling, the Gambling Commission said.
Player interaction was often not tailored to the specific customer experience or spectrum of harm, and was therefore “not meaningful”, the regulator wrote.
An early risk detection system was not shown to be effective in assessing the impact of individual interactions on player behaviour, and whether further action was required.
Its approach to assessments meant it could not effectively determine whether a player had read or understood information or advice provided, the regulator said.
“The policy and procedural failings may not have been as severe as those at other gambling businesses in recent years but they were failings nonetheless,” executive director of operations Kay Roberts said.
“We expect high standards from operators in terms of keeping gambling safe, fair and crime-free, and will always take action to correct any failings,” she said. “This operator is very aware that a repeat of these failings will result in escalating regulatory action.”
The money from the settlement will be directed toward socially responsible causes, the commission said.
The regulatory action followed an AML and social responsibility assessment in March 2022, the commission said.
The settlement came even though the commission’s review of specific players identified during the estimate found “no evidence of criminal spend with the licensee or the acceptance of funds from persons subject to financial sanctions”.
The commission said it did find repeated failures in policy, and they continued after the company became aware of the problems.
But bet365 cooperated with the regulatory investigation and took steps to remedy the problems, the regulator wrote.
