The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) announced regulatory action against the operator of buzzbingo.com. The major gambling regulatory body in the UK announced that Buzz Group Ltd would have to pay a £780,000 fine after a UKGC investigation found that it had failed to comply with some social responsibility and money laundering rules.
Apart from the monetary penalty, the online bingo operator has also received a formal warning for the aforementioned failures that occurred from October 2019 to December 2020.
As the UK Gambling Commission noted, the case against Buzz Group Ltd, like other enforcement actions that the watchdog took against gambling operators, came as a result of planned compliance activity across the industry.
The Executive Director of the UKGC, Helen Venn, also noted that the Commission expects all operators to effectively implement special procedures and policies that make gambling safe and keep criminal activity away from the sector. Ms Venn said that the country’s gambling regulatory body expects every gambling business to remain aware that their operations, policies and procedures are subject to monitoring, so they should make sure they are in line with the regulatory requirements.
If not, the UKGC would take action against all gambling companies that violate the rules.
Several AML and Social Responsibility Failures of Buzz Group Found by the UK Gambling Watchdog
As mentioned above, Buzz Group Ltd was found to have breached some social responsibility and anti-money laundering rules.
Several major social responsibility failures were found by the UK Gambling Commission during the regulatory investigation into the online bingo operator’s services. First, the watchdog found that the financial triggers used by Buzz Group had not been doing a great job identifying players who were at risk of gambling-related harm because they were set too high. The Commission found that one customer was able to deposit a total of £22,400 in five days without the company initiating any meaningful interaction during that time. Also, the systems implemented in the online bingo company’s operations had not been identifying at-risk players properly, with Buzz Group failing to take the increased risk of gambling-related harm into consideration in a number of instances even though those customers spent way too much money.
The online gambling operator was also found to have not carried out effective customer interactions with some people whose gambling reached extreme levels over short periods of time. One such customer managed to deposit and, respectively, spent about £12,400 in 6 days, with the operator making almost no records of customer interaction during this time. Once the company made a decision to interact with a customer, the online gambling operator’s customer service employees did not always follow the customer interaction procedures of the company.
A number of violations of anti-money laundering rules have also been found. During the investigation held by the UKGC, it became clear that so-called source-of-fund checks (SOF) of the operator have been too dependent on open source or anecdotal information rather than actual facts. In one case, the company employees chose to place reliance on a large customer win without taking into account that the future gambling expenditures of the customer may involve the proceeds of criminal activity.
Also, a number of alerts had to be activated before an anti-money laundering interaction of a customer took place. For example, one customer was able to hit 9 financial alerts before Buzz Group eventually suspended their accounts while an anti-money laundering interaction was pending. The online bingo operator was also found to have been keeping insufficient records of AML interactions with customers. Also, it was not always clear what issues had been discussed between the company’s representatives and the players during those interactions.
- Author
Olivia Cole
