The UK Gambling Commission has slapped repeat offender Intouch Games with a £6.1m penalty for social responsibility and money laundering failings.
Same old story
The latest punishment follows a £2.2m settlement in 2019 for regulatory failures and a £3.4m fine and formal warning in 2021.
Kay Roberts, executive director of operations at the UKGC, said: “Considering this operator’s history of failings we expected to see significant improvement when we carried out our planned compliance assessment.“Disappointingly, although many improvements had been made, there was still more to do.
“This £6.1m fine shows that we will take escalating enforcement action where failures are repeated and all licensees should be acutely aware of this,” she added.
The £6.1m penalty came after Intouch Games failed a compliance assessment last March.
Social irresponsibility
According to the assessment, the company failed to interact with a customer until seven weeks after they had been flagged for interaction due to erratic play patterns and extended periods of play.
The operator also accepted a customer’s word that they earned £6,000 a month without verifying this information, despite being flagged for high customer spend and gambling during unsociable hours.A risky business
According to the Gambling Commission’s investigation, Intouch Games did not adequately consider the risk of a customer being the beneficiary of a life insurance policy, having links to high-risk jurisdictions, or being a politically exposed person when conducting its money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment.
The regulator said Intouch had not implemented the proper policies or procedures to address the risk factors above, having failed to sufficiently consider its guidance.
For example, the operator forgot to follow its own policy by failing to request source of funds information from customers who deposited and lost £10,000 in a 12-month period.
Halesowen-headquartered Intouch Games operates 11 casino websites in the UK for brands including bonusboss, cashmo, drslot, jammymonkey and slotfactory.
UKGC officials noted the licensee co-operated with the regulator and acknowledged the failings identified during the assessment before taking immediate remedial action.
The Commission has continued its tough enforcement stance in 2023. Intouch Games joins UK licensees VBET and TonyBet in being on the wrong end of regulatory action this year.
