Interactive

UK – Regulatory action against Greentube Alderney

By Lewis - 2 December 2021

The UK Gambling Commission has imposed a regulatory settlement of £685,000 after an investigation revealed social responsibility and money laundering failures. Greentube Alderney – which operates admiralcasino.co.uk and bellfruitcasino.com – will also undergo extensive independent auditing for the failures which occurred between December 2019 and November 2020.

The Commission investigation revealed that the operator failed to:
• interact with customers in a way which minimises the risk of customers experiencing gambling harms
• conduct adequate assessments of the risk of money laundering
• have in place and implement appropriate policies, procedures and controls to prevent money laundering
• to alert the Commission to an event that could have a significant impact on the nature or structure of a licensee’s business.

The Commission recognised the serious nature of the breaches identified, while also noting the extent to which Greentube had taken steps to remedy the breach, its early recognition of failings, and the cooperation shown to the Commission throughout its investigation.

Helen Venn, Commission Executive Director, said: “Compliance with Commission rules aimed at keeping people safe and gambling crime free is not optional. We will always take firm action against those operators who fail to meet the high standards we expect for consumers in Britain.”

The Commission underlined the fact that the breaches were similar in nature to previous cases it has investigated and dealt with in the past. The Commission highlighted the following questions in order to maintain good practice:

• Do you have formal processes in place to measure the effectiveness of your AML and safer gambling policies and are findings adequately recorded?
• Do you efficiently record all compliance-related decisions and are you able to demonstrate to the Commission, on request, evidence of ongoing assessment, evaluation and improvement?
• Do lessons learned from public statements flow into your policy and processes?
Are your customer risk profiles formed by or linked to your money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment?
• Do you have a formalised process for analysing the effectiveness of customer interactions to ensure that reviews were adequately documented and consistent in their approach?
• Do you log the types of behaviour which have triggered a customer interaction and keep sufficient records of interactions, along with decisions not to interact especially in terms of the level of detail provided?
• Do you have out of hours arrangements in place?
• Have your staff received sufficient AML and SR training?