The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) revealed that a gambling company will have to undergo an extensive investigation following some regulatory findings of marketing, money laundering and social responsibility failures.
The major UK gambling regulator imposed an official warning and a monetary fine amounting to £3.4 million on InTouch Games Limited – the operator that currently runs a number of gambling platforms, including cashmo.co.uk, casino2020.co.uk, mrspin.co.uk, bonusboss.co.uk, drslot.co.uk, pocktwin.co.uk, casino.mfortune.co.uk, slotfactory.com and mfortune.co.uk.
In addition to the aforementioned measures and as part of a new licence condition, InTouch Games is required to hire a firm of independent auditors at its own expense to carry out an investigation that will make sure the gambling company is fully in line with the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice set out by the Gambling Commission.
InTouch Games has become the latest addition to the UKGC list of companies that have suffered from regulatory sanctions, such as Aspers Limited, Boylesports Enterprise, Silverbond Enterprises, etc. Currently, the UK gambling watchdog has the power to apply a number of sanctions to operating licences after a review into the licence holders is carried out – warning, adding new conditions or amending existing ones, financial penalty, licence suspension and licence revocation.
Following the announcement of the regulatory action against the gambling company, the UKGC Executive Director, Richard Watson, confirmed that the watchdog will continue its work to raise the gambling industry standards and hold operators that fail to comply accountable for their actions.
Online Gambling Operator Will Have to Undergo Extensive Independent Audit, Too
In its announcement of the regulatory action against InTouch Games, the UK Gambling Commission revealed it found the gambling company to have failed some social responsibility, anti-money laundering and fairness and transparency requirements and practices.
A number of social responsibility failures of the gambling operator were found by the Commission. InTouch Games was found to have stated in its Responsible Gambling Team interaction guidance that the operator may offer a bonus in case a customer provides identification. Furthermore, the online gambling company failed to put its customer interaction procedures and policies into action for a total of seven customers in cases when some concerns related to possible problem gambling had occurred. InTouch Games was also found to have not used all relevant sources of information in order to make sure it has effective decision-making procedures. It has also failed to deliver effective customer interaction for the aforementioned seven users.
As mentioned above, the UKGC probe further found that the gambling operator failed to comply with some anti-money laundering rules. The gambling watchdog found that the licensee’s risk assessment did not take into account the risk associated with allowing players to use a payment provider that also acts as a crypto-currencies exchange. Furthermore, InTouch Games failed to critically review the requested Source of Funds customer information and neglected to conduct suitable levels of Enhanced Customer Due Diligence.
Last but not least, the online gambling operator failed to inform its customers in an SMS text about the minimum and maximum deposit limits regarding the significant terms of a certain offer, as well as the time limit for users to claim the bonus.
- Author
Olivia Cole
