UKGC Slaps BetVictor with £2m Fine for AML & Social Responsibility Failures

UKGC slaps BetVictor with a £2m fine following an investigation that established the operator had failed to adhere to licensing conditions. (Image from gamblingcomission.gov.uk)

Operated by BV Gaming Limited, BetVictor, a leading online casino in the UK, has been handed a £2 million fine from the UKGC. Revealed by a public statement posted by the UK Gambling Commission as part of the penalty issued to the brand, the fine was issued as a penalty for failing to adhere to anti-money laundering, fairness, and social responsibility regulations.

The failures were noticed during a compliance assessment performed on BV Gaming Limited (license number: 039576-R- 319370-019) by the UK’s gambling regulatory body in March 2020.

As the UKGC, now headed by Marcus Boyle, points out in the public statement, any licensee must comply with regulations as set out by the Gambling Act 2005, something it appears BV Gaming Limited failed to do. The UK Gambling Commission requires operators under its jurisdiction to adhere to conditions such as preventing gambling from becoming a source of crime, that the gambling services offered are fair, transparent and safe, and that operators protect vulnerable children people and children against the harms of gambling.

According to the statement, BV Gaming failed to comply with a handful of licence conditions and codes of practice between the 1st of January 2019 and the 12th of March 2020. These failures included not adequately complying with license conditions, including the provision of fair and transparent terms, taking adequate steps to prevent money laundering, and sufficiently interacting with customers in a way that reduces the chances of those customers experiencing gambling harms.

Alongside BetVictor, BV Gaming Limited operates the HeartBingo platform and the Parimatch online betting site under the same UKGC license. It is unclear what sites in particular were responsible for the failings or whether it was a combination of the three.

Extensive Financial Repercussions for BV Gaming Limited

For failing to adhere to the aforementioned licensing conditions, the UKGC has ordered BV Gaming Limited to pay fines of around £2 million. Those fines will go towards the regulatory body’s 3-year National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms. They broke the financial penalty down into a fine of £1.72m, a divestment settlement totalling £352,000, and £11,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.

The UKGC has already shown this year that it will not hold back when issuing punishments to online gambling operators that adhere to gambling regulations when the regulator issued a £3.8 million fine to Genesis Global for breaking similar licensing conditions. The commission also regularly changes its regulations when they notice a need for it. Recent updates made by the UKGC to the Fair Terms and Practises guidance that it provides operators operating within the UK evidence this.

The UKGC stated that the continued cooperation of BV Gaming throughout the investigation and the company’s steps taken to remedy the failures went some way to reducing the size of the fine.

Leanne Oxley, the director of Enforcement at UKGC, made a statement with words to the effect of “The UKGC will always go hard operators that do not comply with UK gambling regulations.”