The UK Gambling Commission have leapt into action with another round of punishments handed out to three different operators.
Jumpman Gaming and Progress Play, who between them have more than 400 active domains in the online casino space worldwide, have been fined a total of £675,000 for a catalogue of regulatory breaches.
And Goldchip, the proprietors of the Goldchip.com sportsbook that has a casino licence ‘pending’, have had their UK operating licence suspended.
Commenting on the first two cases mentioned, the regulator’s director of enforcement and intelligence, Leanne Oxley, said:
“We will always clamp down on operators who fail in their obligations to keep gambling safe and crime-free. We encourage other operators to consider the failings identified in these cases carefully, and consider what improvements they can make in their own businesses.”
Jumpman Hit with £500,000 Fine
The bulk of the total fines levied by the Gambling Commission in May have been taken from Jumpman Gaming.
The firm, which operates brands such as Amigo Slots, Cheeky Casino and Lucky Admiral, were not exactly jumping for joy when the regulator revealed their punishment for breaches of three different aspects of their licence conditions.
They had failed to implement adequate money-laundering checks on their players, while the firm had managed to ‘conflate’ source of funds and source of wealth when monitoring their customers’ activity.
Jumpman also allowed their players to lose ‘well in excess of the average UK income’ before they carried out any reviews of their staking, including one customer who lost £11,000 in less than two days.
The Commission found that the firm’s breaches were ‘systemic’, rather than one-offs, and that was the main reason behind the sizable £500,000 fine, which will be paid to the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.
The Opposite of Progress
Progress Play, who operate more than 200 websites in the online gambling sphere, were fined £175,000 for a series of breaches that they ‘should have been aware of’.
They failed to correctly implement proactive measures to identify and interact with problem gamblers, and the regulator also concluded that ‘VIP agents may have received pay incentives linked to the take up of bonus offers and promotions.’
Progress also gave their players 14 days to provide source of funds documentation – in which time they were still allowed to bet, which sort of defeats the object and does not do enough to counter against potential money laundering.
Going for Gold
With pending licence applications for online casino gaming and virtual betting, Goldchip Ltd clearly have big aspirations for the future of their company.
However, those have been dealt a huge blow after the Gambling Commission temporarily suspended their remote sports betting licence.
While an investigation is ongoing, the regulator has refused to comment on the specifics of the case, revealing only that the firm may have acted in a way ‘contrary to the Gambling Act 2005.’
Goldchip’s sportsbook has been taken offline, with the message ‘Goldchip are working with the UK Gambling Commission to resolve this situation as soon as possible’ displayed on its homepage.