Poll Source of Wealth poll: How do the SOW requirements affect you?

How do the SOW requirements affect you?

  • I don't like the intrusiveness and play at casinos that DO NOT require SOW.

    Votes: 61 37.4%
  • I don't like the intrusiveness but still play the same at casinos that require SOW.

    Votes: 17 10.4%
  • I don't like the intrusiveness but still play at casinos that require SOW - but play less.

    Votes: 21 12.9%
  • I don't mind. I play the same.

    Votes: 9 5.5%
  • I don't mind, and I play more now.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I've never been asked and I am in the EU/UK

    Votes: 37 22.7%
  • I've never been asked and I am outside the EU/UK

    Votes: 18 11.0%

  • Total voters
    163
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"I don't like the intrusiveness and play at casinos that DO NOT require SOW." 34% so far - which goes to show that the UK (and MGA market as well) is hemorrhaging. Regulators and compliance folks need to come to terms with reality and find and another solution to "protect players from harm" - this obviously is not working.

You are not protecting anyone from harm when you are driving 34% of your player base to unlicensed offshore clip-shot-joints. Casinos like Red Lion Casino, Bronze Casino, Cozyno, et al, that target problem gamblers are thriving in this market of over-handed protectionism.

Online casinos should be mimicking their brick and mortar brethren - where are the SOW requests there? Much of this has to do with the rare occurrences (but widely publicized) accounts of people who had tragically delved into their corporate business accounts, kids' college funds, retirement savings, etc. and lost it all. I sincerely understand the grief and the need to prevent these horrible episodes, but this is like cutting off your nose in spite of your face. Source of Wealth requests are just not working to solve this.

I personally would never submit any source of wealth docs. The only entity that gets this info from me is the federal tax office, not some online business where all I want to do is chill out and play some slot games or video poker.

It needs to be made clear that all players have a choice whether or not to submit SOW docs. Just because you're in the UK doesn't mean that you have to abide by any source of wealth requirement - a 5 second Google search will solve the issue for anti-SOWers. And these players are the ones who will be placing themselves into harms way. They have a choice between the reputable BGO casino which is properly run and abides by the regs of the UKGC, or skip it and click the link to
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. It's their choice, not the MGA's or the UKGC's.

It is a fact, and we have the screenshots to prove it, that those offshore entities PREY on these players. Players who admittedly are on Gamstop are welcomed with open arms at these despicable websites. These casinos have no right or any need to require any source of wealth. All they want is action at their crooked slot games, and another round of Champagne at lunch time. It's a rogue casino operator's dream come true.
 
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For those of you asking for the MGA rules:

Google for MGA's Implementing-Procedures-Part-II_Remote-Gaming.pdf if you want to read it in full, but the essence for KYC and SOW is as follows:

Each Licensee is required to present their own Customer Risk Assessment procedure during the license application procedure. This is what varies from Licensee to Licensee, which then affects if you as a player will fall into the Low, Medium or High Risk bucket. In this Risk Assessment, the casino uses things like Deposit amounts, Deposit Frequency, Games played, Game play patterns, Payment methods used, Withdrawal patterns etc to come up with a Risk Level for each player.
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Exactly. There is absolutely nothing in that customer journey flow chart that suggests hard limits should be used. Customers should be placed into low/meduim/high risk group when assessed then a decision on if a SoW is required should be made. We see time and time again, casinos doing SoW on players who are, clearly, low risk.
 
"I personally would never submit any source of wealth docs. The only entity that gets this info from me is the federal tax office, not some online business where all I want to do is chill out and play some slot games or video poker."

100% agree here. Any request for personal info is an immediate closed account from me. I have a couple of accounts that I've had for years, so I'll probably never ever try anyone else's offering from now on. In these days of ID theft they want me to send personal and sensitive info to some corporate grunt on the end of an email address who I don't know from Adam and with the added icing on the cake that many are offshore? It ain't happening. I did networking and security in the enterprise for thousands of users for 14 years and I don't trust anybody. Dear casino's, give me proof that you're running AD with endpoint control and DLP and even then I probably won't trust you.

The AML excuse is laughable when billions were laundered through all the major banks last year. For an online casino it really can't be that difficult to detect ML through patterns. It seems that rules are only for the little people these days.

Some of us are old enough to remember when we lived in a free country without nanny and every tom, dick and harry prying and spying into everything we do.
 
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Exactly. There is absolutely nothing in that customer journey flow chart that suggests hard limits should be used. Customers should be placed into low/meduim/high risk group when assessed then a decision on if a SoW is required should be made. We see time and time again, casinos doing SoW on players who are, clearly, low risk.
Therein lies the issue. When you’ve got someone as experienced as Mark getting it wrong, how can we expect anything better elsewhere.

Some casinos are using ‘thresholds’ as a hard and fast trigger to ask for these documents rather than doing a personalised assessment of player risk...as you’ve said above.

With the power Mark has at BGO you’d hope he’d read everything said in this thread and endeavour to tweak things there for his player base. If these companies can’t find a balance then there’s only one direction they’re heading in ultimately (it won’t be up).

Ultimately the the thing that really angers me is that, as we’ve seen on this forum, some casinos are targeting low risk players with these intrusive checks then denying cash outs. This is nothing other than scumbag behaviour and I’d love to see the UKGC penalise these outfits severely.
 
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100% agree here. Any request for personal info is an immediate closed account from me. I have a couple of accounts that I've had for years, so I'll probably never ever try anyone else's offering from now on. In these days of ID theft they want me to send personal and sensitive info to some corporate grunt on the end of an email address who I don't know from Adam and with the added icing on the cake that many are offshore? It ain't happening....
No offshore entity should be asking for source of wealth documents. If they do ask for it, that info will probably be sold on the dark web.
 
I've pretty much given up, I rarely play and when I do, go to OLG, as shitty as it is
Too much information required. Barrages of 'but UKGC says' and I dont even bloody live there.
We came into some estate $ and I dont really feel like being haunted and passing over estate docs.
I have the $ otherwise I wouldnt be playing - it's mine to burn
 
Therein lies the issue. When you’ve got someone as experienced as Mark getting it wrong, how can we expect anything better elsewhere.

Some casinos are using ‘thresholds’ as a hard and fast trigger to ask for these documents rather than doing a personalised assessment of player risk...as you’ve said above.

With the power Mark has at BGO you’d hope he’d read everything said in this thread and endeavour to tweak things there for his player base. If these companies can’t find a balance then there’s only one direction they’re heading in ultimately (it won’t be up).

Ultimately the the thing that really angers me is that, as we’ve seen on this forum, some casinos are targeting low risk players with these intrusive checks then denying cash outs. This is nothing other than scumbag behaviour and I’d love to see the UKGC penalise these outfits severely.
I’m not sure I’m “getting it wrong”, I’ll openly admit I’m not an expert in this area which is why my first few hires at BGO were for AML and compliance, but I think it’s unfair to say “there are no financial thresholds on the flow” when there is clearly a “has the player deposited €2k” decision tree at the top of the chart!

This is what I was (perhaps badly) trying to explain. There needs to be some kind of trigger to instigate the initial check. Whether it’s €2k total deposits as this case, £10k losses, £500 or more single deposit etc, just something for the (often manual) process to start. Depending on the risk appetite of the operator, they will be different depending on where you play. Likewise the outcome of the risk score will be different.

From an AML side of things it’s a lot easier than affordability and as a number of posts have suggested in this thread, they can be mixed up. There have been issues in the past where AML and affordability have been independent of each other, while that makes things easier process-wise it can lead to problems. Eg a customer may have no risks from AML but if they are constantly in their overdraft or there is evidence of debt on the statement they send to satisfy AML, those can’t be ignored.

There’s a huge opportunity for a casino to get this right and I’m trying to make BGO that casino. We’re quite far away from that though I’ll admit and processes, policies and internal mindsets need to change. In the meantime I’ll apologise in advance for any cumbersome requests for docs!

Mark
 
I’m not sure I’m “getting it wrong”, I’ll openly admit I’m not an expert in this area which is why my first few hires at BGO were for AML and compliance, but I think it’s unfair to say “there are no financial thresholds on the flow” when there is clearly a “has the player deposited €2k” decision tree at the top of the chart!

This is what I was (perhaps badly) trying to explain. There needs to be some kind of trigger to instigate the initial check. Whether it’s €2k total deposits as this case, £10k losses, £500 or more single deposit etc, just something for the (often manual) process to start. Depending on the risk appetite of the operator, they will be different depending on where you play. Likewise the outcome of the risk score will be different.

From an AML side of things it’s a lot easier than affordability and as a number of posts have suggested in this thread, they can be mixed up. There have been issues in the past where AML and affordability have been independent of each other, while that makes things easier process-wise it can lead to problems. Eg a customer may have no risks from AML but if they are constantly in their overdraft or there is evidence of debt on the statement they send to satisfy AML, those can’t be ignored.

There’s a huge opportunity for a casino to get this right and I’m trying to make BGO that casino. We’re quite far away from that though I’ll admit and processes, policies and internal mindsets need to change. In the meantime I’ll apologise in advance for any cumbersome requests for docs!

Mark
Great reply Mark, I appreciate it.

I certainly see it from your perspective, the whole thing puts you between a rock and a hard place- and obviously a lot of us are going to be partisan one way or another (yourself from an operator perspective and us from a player perspective).

You're a great rep and a decent person it seems so I have no doubts that your establishment is in good hands with you.

Regards
 
My experience of BGO is that they arent that great,better than some but worse than a good few. The mentioned £10 bonus for a £10 deposit is a 65x bonus on a limited amount of slots at 100%(a not great selection,including some but not anywhere near all netent slots.)For example Jack and The Beanstalk is not included yet Gonzo's Quest and Guns N Roses are. I think this is pretty poor. I also took a break from BGO and upon returning they wanted a live photo from my video camera rather than simply a copy of my Driving Licence or Passport,what the hell is that all about? Anyway,BGO has a hell of a lot of work to do to catch some customers back from those who it has lost. Does it still have a maximum cashout too? I was gutted when I realised I wasnt getting £200 of my balance when I won about £450 a year or so ago due to this cap. I'd previously won about £1k on BGO before these types of rules were implemented.
 
I’m not sure I’m “getting it wrong”, I’ll openly admit I’m not an expert in this area which is why my first few hires at BGO were for AML and compliance, but I think it’s unfair to say “there are no financial thresholds on the flow” when there is clearly a “has the player deposited €2k” decision tree at the top of the chart!
That figure is when you have to do enhanced KYC checks, at that point you should be assigning each customer into one of the three risk categories. The £2000 has nothing to do with carrying out an AML check.

From an AML side of things it’s a lot easier than affordability and as a number of posts have suggested in this thread, they can be mixed up. There have been issues in the past where AML and affordability have been independent of each other, while that makes things easier process-wise it can lead to problems. Eg a customer may have no risks from AML but if they are constantly in their overdraft or there is evidence of debt on the statement they send to satisfy AML, those can’t be ignored.
In the first set of guidance from the UKGC on the subject of AML checks, it specifically stated that the documents supplied for this check MUST NOT be used for any other purpose. I would have to refresh my memory to be sure, but I think the current guidelines have changed that slightly to 'unless you obtain customer consent prior to the request'.
 
That figure is when you have to do enhanced KYC checks, at that point you should be assigning each customer into one of the three risk categories. The £2000 has nothing to do with carrying out an AML check.
To be honest Colin, I think this is what is confusing a lot of operators. They're confusing assigning risk with carrying out the checks. As I've said, this will be of detriment to the casinos that do this in the long run as they'll shed players- something Brian alluded to further up. Why lose a customer to these checks when they're generally not necessary in the first place for low risk customers?

A hell of a lot of due diligence can be carried out behind the scenes by looking into the individual casino account; deposit levels, playthrough, betting styles etc. This is the role of a MLRO worth his salt...not blindly blanket requesting documents at a 'trigger'. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can blindly request documents; the role is more nuanced than that however.
 
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I’m not sure I’m “getting it wrong”, I’ll openly admit I’m not an expert in this area which is why my first few hires at BGO were for AML and compliance, but I think it’s unfair to say “there are no financial thresholds on the flow” when there is clearly a “has the player deposited €2k” decision tree at the top of the chart!

This is what I was (perhaps badly) trying to explain. There needs to be some kind of trigger to instigate the initial check. Whether it’s €2k total deposits as this case, £10k losses, £500 or more single deposit etc, just something for the (often manual) process to start. Depending on the risk appetite of the operator, they will be different depending on where you play. Likewise the outcome of the risk score will be different.

From an AML side of things it’s a lot easier than affordability and as a number of posts have suggested in this thread, they can be mixed up. There have been issues in the past where AML and affordability have been independent of each other, while that makes things easier process-wise it can lead to problems. Eg a customer may have no risks from AML but if they are constantly in their overdraft or there is evidence of debt on the statement they send to satisfy AML, those can’t be ignored.

There’s a huge opportunity for a casino to get this right and I’m trying to make BGO that casino. We’re quite far away from that though I’ll admit and processes, policies and internal mindsets need to change. In the meantime I’ll apologise in advance for any cumbersome requests for docs!

Mark
The thing is though Mark,and we keep coming back to this,is why is it that you can play at casinos like Novibet,Unibet,Sky Vegas and NEVER get asked for SOW documents regardless of your level of deposits,losses or cashouts.If the regulations are there then every casino operating in the UK has to abide by those same regulations.If not them surely they run the risk of heavy fines from the UKGC and i don't recall any stories of the casinos i have just mentioned incurring such fines.It must boil down to the interpretation of the regulations rather than the regulations themselves.
 
The thing is though Mark,and we keep coming back to this,is why is it that you can play at casinos like Novibet,Unibet,Sky Vegas and NEVER get asked for SOW documents regardless of your level of deposits,losses or cashouts.If the regulations are there then every casino operating in the UK has to abide by those same regulations.If not them surely they run the risk of heavy fines from the UKGC and i don't recall any stories of the casinos i have just mentioned incurring such fines.It must boil down to the interpretation of the regulations rather than the regulations themselves.
Because those places have risk management that works. A launderer would stick out like a sore thumb to a casino and most likely so would other fraud. Those places will do SOW checks but not on low risk customers as there’d be little point (as has been touched on a bit ago). As Colin said, they will do their due diligence behind the scenes and assign you a risk level after x amount of deposits.

The UK bookie sites have been doing SOW for years, before it became such a notorious thing for the casual player.

On the other hand, some Malta based casinos just seem to be sending blanket SOW requests at arbitrary thresholds and mainly at cash out attempts. Which is poor as the MLRO should be going on a player by player basis and that’s what I’d be paying my MLRO to do.
 
Just to show this has always been a 'thing' well before the Maltese gang started with it, from 2014.

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Look at the circumstances, clearly that would ring alarm bells and would be a high risk customer, so the law has been there for years, just the overseas casinos decided they didn't have to follow it, got caught, got fined, and now shit themselves. The UK bookies are doing things the same as they always have, following the rules, and thats why almost never do you see a 'normal' player get hit with a SoW from them.

Of course, some casinos are clearly using them to steal customer funds, like Videoslots who lie and state they won't payout if you don't supply everything they ask for, despite MrWild saying, by law, they have to.
 
Just to show this has always been a 'thing' well before the Maltese gang started with it, from 2014.

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Look at the circumstances, clearly that would ring alarm bells and would be a high risk customer, so the law has been there for years, just the overseas casinos decided they didn't have to follow it, got caught, got fined, and now shit themselves. The UK bookies are doing things the same as they always have, following the rules, and thats why almost never do you see a 'normal' player get hit with a SoW from them.

Of course, some casinos are clearly using them to steal customer funds, like Videoslots who lie and state they won't payout if you don't supply everything they ask for, despite MrWild saying, by law, they have to.
Yep and this is why the Maltese casinos will eventually lose their UK player base. People will simply go and play where they get the least hassle.
 
After my titanic struggle with Cas*mo I simply close accounts now or exclude when the SoW comes around. As a self-employed person with earnings coming in from numerous different places I just cannot face the aggro of proving myself innocent each time. My desire to gamble is far outweighed by my desire to avoid this bollocks I went through once before.
 
After my titanic struggle with Cas*mo I simply close accounts now or exclude when the SoW comes around. As a self-employed person with earnings coming in from numerous different places I just cannot face the aggro of proving myself innocent each time. My desire to gamble is far outweighed by my desire to avoid this bollocks I went through once before.
My approach now.

Might be less games at Sky - but distinctly less hassle.
No SOW, very quick withdrawals and OK bonuses... not too shabby really.
 
After my titanic struggle with Cas*mo I simply close accounts now or exclude when the SoW comes around. As a self-employed person with earnings coming in from numerous different places I just cannot face the aggro of proving myself innocent each time. My desire to gamble is far outweighed by my desire to avoid this bollocks I went through once before.
Exactly, I do the same, don't even think about it, as soon as I get one, I reply to the email with 'please close my account'
 
Exactly, I do the same, don't even think about it, as soon as I get one, I reply to the email with 'please close my account'
That should have been one of the options in the poll IMO - I suspect many people do the same. So I cannot check any box in the poll myself...
 
That should have been one of the options in the poll IMO - I suspect many people do the same. So I cannot check any box in the poll myself...
And the things they ask for make it almost impossible to comply, plus the fact you send what they ask for then days/weeks later they ask for more, it can take well over a month at some places. They almost all want certified accounts too, like HMRC accept my accounts, why the hell should I pay hundreds to get an accountant to do them just to give my money to a casino. Not a chance. They want to pay for the accountant fees, they are welcome and I'll get them done :)
 
Hi there.

An interesting area for discussion and, in my opinion, problematic, both for players and the entire online gambling industry as a whole. A lot of information has been provided here, let me share my thoughts. I can understand players frustration when they receive a request from an online casino to provide financial information. But I also understand operators where SoW requests are becoming more commonplace. Online casinos have to oblige to many different rules, guidelines and regulations. These rules may vary significantly depending on the operator's license where the 'stronger' the license is the stricter the verification procedures are. I cannot share the details, since a team of professionals from the casino security department is engaged in such a check. They assess the risks associated with each player and consider each such case individually according to both an AML and a Responsible Gambling perspective.

But I'm confident that SoW checks are primarily aimed at preventing crime out of gambling to provide a safe environment for players and should be carried out with all due respect to customers.?
 
I've pretty much given up, I rarely play and when I do, go to OLG, as shitty as it is
Too much information required. Barrages of 'but UKGC says' and I dont even bloody live there.
We came into some estate $ and I dont really feel like being haunted and passing over estate docs.
I have the $ otherwise I wouldnt be playing - it's mine to burn
But the Queen is on your money - so there. :p
twenty-dollar-2-1600x764.jpg
 
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