The UK Gambling Commission announced it has imposed a £6-million fine on the online gambling operator Casumo. Furthermore, the company, which runs casumo.com, will face an extensive investigation following revelations that it failed to comply with some anti-money laundering and social responsibility rules.
As announced by the gambling watchdog, the investigation of the UKGC is set to also result in an official warning for the company.
The UK Gambling Commission shared that the social responsibility failures of Casumo included not deploying policies and procedures regarding customer interaction in cases when the activity of a certain customer may indicate gambling addiction. These failings led to some serious customer losses. One consumer lost £1.1 million in a period of 3 years without being addressed by the company with a responsible gambling interaction. Another customer lost £76,000 in seven months, and a third one lost £65,000 in a month – and both of them have not been subject to a responsible gambling interaction.
Another social responsibility failure found by the UKGC included not taking into account the gambling regulatory body’s guidance on customer interaction. The most vivid examples of these failures included two cases, in which the operator did not launch a responsible gambling interaction for two customers. The first one lost £89,000 in five hours, while the other lost £59,000 in just an hour and a half.
Casumo Failed to Make Adequate Proof of Income Checks, UKGC Says
As mentioned above, the UK Gambling Commission further revealed that the regulatory measures against Casumo have also been rolled out because of some anti-money laundering failures of the operator.
As a result of the investigation into the gambling company’s services, the watchdog found that customers were permitted to make deposits of significant amounts of money without the company conducting sufficient anti-money laundering checks. Furthermore, the UKGC found that the so-called source of funds (SOF) checks carried out by the operator were not sufficient, not to mention that various invoices and payslips that Casumo presented as evidence of source of funds were not confirmed by bank statements or other evidence acquired by the regulatory body.
The bank statements which the company produced were not properly assessed. Some of the bank statements were incomplete, with only credits showed into the consumer’s account. A customer’s bank statement had the balance figures redacted.
The online gambling operator was also found to have not made adequate checks of documentation for authenticity. In addition, the company failed to assess or restrict the maximum amount of money that a customer should be allowed to spend on its platform based on their wealth, income or other risk factors. Casumo also accepted customer’s winnings from other gambling operators as a source of funds proof without further investigating the customer’s financial state.
The gambling operator failed to ensure that its policies, controls and procedures were implemented in an effective manner.
As a result of the UKGC regulatory action, the online gambling operator has been imposed a new licence condition. As part of it, Casumo must instruct an independent auditor to carry out a separate investigation to examine transactions that have been carried out after July 1st, 2020 at its own expense. The additional check will be aimed at making sure that the company has effectively implemented its new procedures, policies and controls and is in line with the provisions of the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice.
- Author
Olivia Cole
