InTouch & GIG fined £2 Million each by UKGC

Mr Wild

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Just read this at UKGC press release. Four companies have been fined by UKGC. Two of the belonging to GIG (betit and MT secure).

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"InTouch Games Limited will pay £2.2m, Betit Operations Limited will pay £1.4m, MT Secure Trade will pay £700,000 and BestBet Limited will pay a total of £230,972."

Rumors are more are in pipeline... Neverending story here, when so many companies do wrong, it feels maybe the teacher is the bad one, in this case UKGC. Clearly their guidelines are not sufficient.
 
Rizk Casino is an award winning Accredited Casino here at Casinomeister
Just read this at UKGC press release. Four companies have been fined by UKGC. Two of the belonging to GIG (betit and MT secure).

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.


"InTouch Games Limited will pay £2.2m, Betit Operations Limited will pay £1.4m, MT Secure Trade will pay £700,000 and BestBet Limited will pay a total of £230,972."

Rumors are more are in pipeline... Neverending story here, when so many companies do wrong, it feels maybe the teacher is the bad one, in this case UKGC. Clearly their guidelines are not sufficient.

If you look at some of the detailed findings you see bread and butter issues such as the MLRO basically not being qualified for the role, lack of procedures and a monitoring regime: not sure that companies, whose responsibility it is to make sure they are competent in these areas, really need to be led down the garden path, by hand,when it comes to some of these issues. I jest, but what would the guidelines need to say? Make sure your MLRO is, er, competent for the role?
 
when so many companies do wrong, it feels maybe the teacher is the bad one, in this case UKGC. Clearly their guidelines are not sufficient.

That's an unusually bizarre conclusion.

If you read the UKGC reports there are plenty of operators who manage to be entirely compliant with the new rules and regulations, or are given 'minor infractions' that result in them being told to improve for next time, with no penalty or fine being levied.

As such, it's clearly possible, on a wide scale, to do all this stuff right and not get into trouble. Blaming the UKGC when they're on the players' side, makes no sense to me at all.

Casinos are being forced, for the first time ever, to up their game and run their businesses responsibly and ethically - if some of them can't manage that, then tough.
 
Seemingly daft question maybe, but am I right in thinking that 100% of the funds from these fines goes directly to the UK government?

Have to agree guidelines have been far from crystal clear from the start, sort of explains why so many operators have struggled with and often misinterpreted the SoW requirements.

No you would be wrong. A portion of fines goes to Gamcare and other organisations and also, if needed, players refunded for serious failings. These are normally inclusive within any fines.
 
That's an unusually bizarre conclusion.

If you read the UKGC reports there are plenty of operators who manage to be entirely compliant with the new rules and regulations, or are given 'minor infractions' that result in them being told to improve for next time, with no penalty or fine being levied.

As such, it's clearly possible, on a wide scale, to do all this stuff right and not get into trouble. Blaming the UKGC when they're on the players' side, makes no sense to me at all.

Casinos are being forced, for the first time ever, to up their game and run their businesses responsibly and ethically - if some of them can't manage that, then tough.

K8 Bet...first one encountered with zero new checks. Everyone else seems to be well on top of it and it can work as you say.
 
This does not bode well at all for the Uk industry. I would be pulling my business from here too with these fines floating around. Expect many, many more Uk market withdrawals in the next 12 months.
 
And, as usual it's 3 Malta based companies.
Plus one (always been a bit dodgy) UK company
 
This does not bode well at all for the Uk industry. I would be pulling my business from here too with these fines floating around. Expect many, many more Uk market withdrawals in the next 12 months.

This is for past failings though, particularly around the lack of verification checks hence the money laundering aspect for all 3 mentioned. There are a lot more. You will see several others up. Daub and Casumo have already had this. I won't say who the others are likely to be at this stage but I did share some info with @dunover a while back.

Once people settle into the new rules you will find the better casinos and groups still around whilst the unethical ones will be gone.
 
there's a heck of a lot of jargon used by the ukgc, I got halfway down the page and gave up. I've yet to read any uk press reports of terrorists and money launderers being caught from all this due diligence and customer analysis the ukgc require, if it was such a 'huge' problem you'd think there'd be at least half a dozen cases a year where they've been caught and gone to court ??

SOWs for everyone and enhanced diligence checks reminds me of the approach by the border agency and airport police stopping and searching old age pensioners as potential terror suspects, and having them remove items of clothing like belts :confused:
 
there's a heck of a lot of jargon used by the ukgc, I got halfway down the page and gave up. I've yet to read any uk press reports of terrorists and money launderers being caught from all this due diligence and customer analysis the ukgc require, if it was such a 'huge' problem you'd think there'd be at least half a dozen cases a year where they've been caught and gone to court ??

SOWs for everyone and enhanced diligence checks reminds me of the approach by the border agency and airport police stopping and searching old age pensioners as potential terror suspects, and having them remove items of clothing like belts :confused:

Money laundering cannot be proven because the systems used to detect it and properly verify people were not stringent enough. It also allowed under age gambling and self excluded/Gamstop players to circumvent rules easily. Affordability may be overkill but verifying someone is who they say they are before depositing is fairly standard practice with anything similar that involves a business relationship.
 
Money laundering cannot be proven because the systems used to detect it and properly verify people were not stringent enough. It also allowed under age gambling and self excluded/Gamstop players to circumvent rules easily. Affordability may be overkill but verifying someone is who they say they are before depositing is fairly standard practice with anything similar that involves a business relationship.

obviously the casino would report their suspicions to the police and they'd take it from there, I think the AML regs have been around for years, maybe tightened up in the last decade...but I still can't remember reading about any prosecutions in the press. most people who gamble probably fund it via their bank, so any laundering would have to get past the bank in the first place.

It wouldn't bother me if they raised the gambling age to 21, which would cut out 3 years of 'problems' straight out of the system, students using their loans is probably one of the problem areas so that could mostly remove that in one fell swoop as well.
 
I used to think the UKGC liked topping up their Christmas party/ yacht funds by dishing out huge fines, especially retroactively.

But having seen how woeful many casinos are in regards to AML/ RG, picking on small Regular Joe punters whilst pretending to follow the rules, I'm all for it. Someone hand me a glass of champagne :D

Casinos have been getting away with murder for bloody decades, and so now their solution is to throw the proverbial book at everyone to cover their asses instead of just applying some common sense. Yes May 7th Regulations I'm looking at you :eek:
 
I used to think the UKGC liked topping up their Christmas party/ yacht funds by dishing out huge fines, especially retroactively.

But having seen how woeful many casinos are in regards to AML/ RG, picking on small Regular Joe punters whilst pretending to follow the rules, I'm all for it. Someone hand me a glass of champagne :D

Casinos have been getting away with murder for bloody decades, and so now their solution is to throw the proverbial book at everyone to cover their asses instead of just applying some common sense. Yes May 7th Regulations I'm looking at you :eek:

Don't think it's a particularly bad process other than the affordability part that some are applying.

You need to wonder though, why were a lot of casinos not verifying to this extent before, even with the 72 hour rules on age verification and anti-money laundering regs and how many players have they fucked over by not doing it until money is withdrawn, if ever.
 
Don't think it's a particularly bad process other than the affordability part that some are applying.

You need to wonder though, why were a lot of casinos not verifying to this extent before, even with the 72 hour rules on age verification and anti-money laundering regs and how many players have they fucked over by not doing it until money is withdrawn, if ever.
Exactly....if they were confident in their vetting process they wouldn't be in a tizzy over these new regulations. This ought to have been mandatory from the outset. Lord knows how many underage players casinos have on their books - and have been paid even :cool:
 
The thing is if UKGC have had to bring in new rules etc... it shows their old guidance/approach was seen by the casinos as full of holes/half hearted. I agree the casinos exploited the situation for their own benefit, letting folk lose thousands in a short space of time with no checking and then stalling withdrawals with selfie requests so that the reverse button gets pressed... but still not sure a 100% big brother approach is warranted, that's if that is what happens..so far I haven't had to re register and verify any of my uk based accounts, which suits me fine
 
Rumors are more are in pipeline... Neverending story here, when so many companies do wrong, it feels maybe the teacher is the bad one, in this case UKGC. Clearly their guidelines are not sufficient.

Rubbish, the guidelines are clear, casinos just fail to read and understand them properly. I've pointed out many failings in the past which casinos have said I was wrong about, then fines have been issued. Hire a UK lawyer to deal with UK law then you will be ok.
Use lawyers from outside the UK who don't have experience with UK courts and you are likely to fail.
 
Rubbish, the guidelines are clear, casinos just fail to read and understand them properly. I've pointed out many failings in the past which casinos have said I was wrong about, then fines have been issued. Hire a UK lawyer to deal with UK law then you will be ok.
Use lawyers from outside the UK who don't have experience with UK courts and you are likely to fail.

The one thing that they were unclear on was how casinos should be verifying players. Or so I thought. As it turns out the should have been checking, as a minimum, Date of Birth, Name and voters role address, as a minimum requirement for it and money laundering. The amount of cases on here where people have been able to walk past casinos with wrong details should be looking up their old case files.
 
The one thing that they were unclear on was how casinos should be verifying players. Or so I thought. As it turns out the should have been checking, as a minimum, Date of Birth, Name and voters role address, as a minimum requirement for it and money laundering. The amount of cases on here where people have been able to walk past casinos with wrong details should be looking up their old case files.

It was confirmed in the new Licence Section 17 for the avoidance of doubt as a minimum requirement but casinos had got round it before because "verification" was not defined in the LCCP but that they "trusted operators to operate in the spirit of the terms" before. Clearly not though as they are now defined
 
The one thing that they were unclear on was how casinos should be verifying players. Or so I thought. As it turns out the should have been checking, as a minimum, Date of Birth, Name and voters role address, as a minimum requirement for it and money laundering. The amount of cases on here where people have been able to walk past casinos with wrong details should be looking up their old case files.

exactly, it was clear they needed to do that, but casinos decided not to, then cry when they get caught.
Like AML stuff, it's not new, its been around years, but again, casinos decided they didn't want to do it then cried when they got fined.
 

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