Today, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) revealed that the British bookmaker William Hill has been imposed a penalty package amounting to at least £6.2 million for its senior management systemic failure to provide high-quality customer protection and to prevent money laundering.
The key gambling regulatory body in the UK has conducted an investigation, which results revealed that William Hill Group violated regulations related to social responsibility requirements and anti-money laundering rules in the period from November 2014 and August 2016.
As the UK Gambling Commission shared, the senior management team of the UK-based bookmaker did not manage to make customer risks less severe, and failed to ensure sufficient number of employees to make sure their anti-money laundering and social responsibility procedures were efficient enough. As a result, ten customers of William Hill were given permission to deposit large amounts of money in their accounts which were associated with criminal offences. The latter, however, ended up with William Hill Group generating gains of approximately £1.2 million.
According to the investigation results, the British bookmaker neither adequately sought more information about the money wagers’ source, nor found whether these players were gambling addicts.
For that, the UK Gambling Commission has imposed a penalty package on William Hill Group, with the bookmaker set to pay over £5 million for regulations breaches and deprive themselves of the amount of £1.2 million which they received as a result from the ten customers’ transactions. The victims of the ten customers are set to be identified and their losses repaid. The UK gambling regulatory authority also revealed that William Hill is to return any money generated from these transactions should further failures or incidents occurred to the matter emerge.
Under the ruling of the UKGC, external auditors are set to be appointed by the company, with them expected to review the effectiveness and implementation of the company’s social responsibility and anti-money laundering measures. The auditors will also share their reports’ findings with the wider industry.
Anti-Money Laundering and Customer Protection Failures
The UK Gambling Commission further revealed some examples of William Hill failures to comply with anti-money laundering and customer protection provisions.
One of the ten afore-mentioned customers were given the chance to deposit a total amount of £654,000 in a period of nine months. The funds deposited were not subjected to any checks, despite the fact that the customer in question was employed within the account unit of a business, with this job bringing them approximately £30,000 on an annual basis.
Another player successfully deposited £653,000 over a period of year and a half, but activated a financial alert at William Hill, which required from the bookmaker to conduct a review of the customer profile. The review assignment was sent to managers, but such a check failed to be completed because of a system failure. As a result, the player were able to continue making bets with the bookmaker for a further half a year, despite following financial alerts were activated.
A third customer managed to make deposits amounting to £541,000 in a period of 14 months, after William Hill made the assumption that the player’s potential annual income amounted to £365,000. The assumption was made without any further checks being made.
William Hill Group also identified another customer for possibly having a gambling problem, after their deposit levels surpassing £100,000. The bookmaker contacted the user who eventually said they felt comfortable with their level of spending, so the operator continued to allow the customer to gamble.
- Author
Olivia Cole
