UKGC Fines William Hill again

Posted by Gerry Poltorak on Feb 25, 2018 Posted in Gambling News | No Comments »

William Hill have been fined again by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) for falling short when its comes to money laundering and social responsibility regulations, just 3 weeks after a previous fine for unfair promotional marketing practices.

This time Will Hill was fined £6.2million as it is believed 10 customers with criminal ties were able to deposit six figure sums between 2014 till 2016. William Hill reportedly profited by £1.2million.

In a press release the UKGC said: “We will use the full range of our enforcement powers to make gambling fairer and safer,”

“This was a systemic failing at William Hill which went on for nearly two years and today’s penalty package – which could exceed £6.2m – reflects the seriousness of the breaches.”

“Gambling businesses have a responsibility to ensure that they keep crime out of gambling and tackle problem gambling – and as part of that they must be constantly curious about where the money they are taking is coming from.”

By the sounds of things William Hill decided to spin the wheel when it came to players depositing and withdrawing money and just hoped everything came up good every time, without any real checks. The will now have to give up the money involved and pay the fine.

Below is a list of the offences that William Hill are believed to have broken:

• A customer was allowed to deposit £654,000 over nine months without source of funds checks being carried out. The customer lived in rented accommodation and was employed within the accounts department of a business earning around £30,000 per annum.
• A customer was allowed to deposit £541,000 over 14 months after the operator made the assumption that the customer’s potential income could be £365,000 per annum based on a verbal conversation and without further probing. The reality was that the customer was earning around £30,000 a year and was funding his gambling habit by stealing from his employer.
• A customer who was allowed to deposit £653,000 in an 18 month period activated a financial alert at WHG. The alert resulted in a grading of ‘amber risk’ which required, in accordance with the licensee’s anti-money laundering policy, a customer profile to be reviewed. The file was marked as passed to managers for review but this did not occur due to a systems failure. The customer was able to continue gambling for a further six months despite continuing to activate financial alerts.
• A customer was identified by WHG as having an escalating gambling spend with deposit levels exceeding £100,000. WHG interacted with the customer seeking assurance that the customer was ‘comfortable with their level of spend’. After receiving verbal assurance and without investigating the wider circumstances the operator continued to allow the customer to gamble. In our view that interaction was inadequate and did not review the customer’s behaviour sufficiently to identify if their behaviour was indicative of problem gambling.
• A customer exceeded deposits of £147,000 in an 18 month period with an escalating spend and losses of £112,000. WHG systems identified the issue but its only response over a 12 month period was to send two automated social responsibility emails. Our view is that this action alone was not sufficient given the customer’s gambling behaviour coupled with the severity of the losses.

 



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