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The Gambling Commission has penalised operator bet365 to the tune of £582,120 for failures including AML and social responsibility shortcomings.
Bingo and casino product licence holder Hillside (UK Gaming) is set to pay £343,035, while betting licence holder Hillside (UK Sports) will pay the remaining £239,085.
The failures were noted during a March 2022 compliance assessment by the Gambling Commission.
In terms of AML failures, some included a failure to undertake certain financial sanction checks on new players, ineffective KYC and customer due diligence and inadequate customer risk procedure documents.
On the social responsibility side, customer journeys were not tailored to the necessary standards to mitigate harm, evaluations of customer understanding were not approached effectively and an Early Risk Detection System was deemed ‘not demonstrably effective.’
Gambling Commission Executive Director of Operations Kay Roberts 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. 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.”
Previous penalties handed out by the Commission include £6m to Gamesys in January for similar AML and social responsibility failings, as well as Betfred for £3.25m in July.
Other notable industry penalties include Entain’s £585m fine from HMRC last August for breaches of Section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010. It was today announced that Entain Chairman Barry Gibson is set to retire.
