The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) announced that Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited is set to pay a monetary penalty worth £2.87 million as a result of violations of some anti-money laundering and social responsibility rules. The gambling company, which operates betfred.com and oddsking.com betting platforms is also set to receive an official warning for failures in its business.
As a result of a review that the country’s gambling regulator carried out in the company’s operations, it was found there were several breaches of anti-money laundering and social responsibility regulations in the period from October 2019 and December 2020.
The Gambling Commission revealed that the owner of Betfred was found to have violated paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of its licence condition 12.1.1 and paragraph 1 of licence condition 12.1.2 regarding money laundering. Reportedly, Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited also failed to act in line with ordinary code provision 2.1.1 in terms of money laundering. In addition, the company breached the SRCP (Social Responsibility Code of Practice) 3.4.1’s paragraphs 1 and 2 regarding customer interaction.
The UKGC Director of Enforcement and Intelligence, Leanne Oxley, commented on the regulatory body’s findings, saying that was a further example of the country’s gambling watchdog taking action to investigate alleged violations and then sanction concerning failures. She further explained that the regulator expects Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited and all other holders of gambling operating licences in the UK to take notice and check whether they have to improve their business operations so that they demonstrate active compliance.
Ms Oxley warned that if gambling companies’ standards did not improve, tougher enforcement measures would follow.
A Number of Anti-Money Laundering Failures Registered during the UKGC Review of the Licensee
The investigation of the UK gambling regulator into the operations of Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited found several anti-money laundering failures.
The company was found to have not taken the money laundering and terrorist financing (MLTF) risks linked to its operations fully into account, with particular risks associated with the country or the geographic area of operation, monetary transactions, products and services, customers, etc. Furthermore, it had no appropriate controls, procedures and policies in place to tackle the aforementioned MLTF risks.
The UK Gambling Commission found that the policies, procedures and controls of the online gambling operator were not implemented in an efficient manner. The company had failed to take into account or follow any guidance issued by the UKGC.
According to the results of the review of the operator’s licence, Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited had failed to fully implement the measures included in the Money Laundering Regulations. A failure to identify the MLTF risks to which its business was exposed was also registered, along with the provision of inadequate employee training, lack of monetary transaction scrutiny and failure to conduct sufficient customer due diligence, source-of-funds checks, and anti-money laundering checks.
Regulatory Review Finds Several Social Responsibility Failings
As UK Gambling Commission revealed, a number of social responsibility failings were found during the investigation of the company’s operations.
The investigation found that the company had no controls in place to prevent new customers from spending large amounts of money too quickly. The gambling operator was found to have allowed one customer to lose £70,000 over only a 10-hour period just a day after they opened their account with the company.
In addition, Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited was found to have failed to conduct a further safer gambling account review in a timely manner. As the UK gambling regulatory body noted, companies are required to set safer gambling interactions at times when the velocity of customer spending considerably increases because such behaviour could indicate gambling-related harm.
The regulatory review found that the company first interacted with one customer when they had placed a deposit of £20,700 and lost almost half of it (£10,200), but the next interaction with the player did not take place until four months later, when he had already deposited a whopping amount of £323,715 and lost almost £70,000.
- Author
Olivia Cole
