Mr Green hit by UKGC Penalty Package

By Simon Wright, Last updated Mar 1, 2021

The online casino Mr Green is the latest iGaming operator to be hit by a financial penalty package by the UK Gambling Commission, with the UKGC announcing this morning that Mr Green will be paying a sum of £3m, which will be used to fund the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.

Back on the 4th February the affiliate programme responsible for the affiliate marketing of Mr Green, Mister Affiliate, instructed all their UK affiliates to stop promoting the Mr Green casino operation to UK players. At the time there was speculation as to why this action had been taken, with the affiliate programme citing “recent changes in compliance” as to why this course of action had been taken.

Today’s announcement from the UKGC asserts the following reasoning behind the penalty package which Mr Green, which is now owned by William Hill, have been hit with: “Mr Green will pay £3m to the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms because it failed to have effective procedures aimed at preventing harm and money laundering.”

“As a result of these failures Mr Green:

• did not carry out social responsibility interaction with a customer who won £50,000, gambled it away and deposited thousands more pounds
• took ten-year-old evidence of a £176,000 claims payout as satisfactory evidence of source of funds (SOF) for a customer who deposited over £1m
• accepted a photograph of a laptop screen showing currency in dollars on an alleged crypto trading account as adequate SOF.”

Commenting on the course of action taken by the UKGC, The Gambling Commission’s Executive Director, Richard Watson, said: “Our investigation uncovered systemic failings in respect of both Mr Green’s social responsibility and AML controls which affected a significant number of customers across its online casinos.”

“Consumers in Britain have the right to know that there are checks and balances in place which will help keep them safe and ensure gambling is crime-free – and we will continue to crack down on operators who fail in this area.”

Furthermore the Gambling Commission asserts that period of non-compliance pre dates the acquisition of Mr Green by William Hill plc and urges all licensed UK operators to read the public statement made by the UKGC, which can be read in full here, to ensure that they avoid the mistakes made by Mr Green.

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