Compliance Updates

UKGC: William Hill Group businesses to pay record £19.2m for failures

Published

2 years ago

March 28, 2023

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Three gambling businesses owned by William Hill Group will pay a total of £19.2 million for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.

WHG (International) Limited, which runs williamhill. com, will pay £12.5 million, Mr Green Limited, which runs mrgreen. com, will pay £3.7 million and William Hill Organization Limited, which operates 1,344 gambling premises across Britain, will pay £3 million.

Andrew Rhodes, Gambling Commission chief executive, said: “When we launched this investigation the failings we uncovered were so widespread and alarming serious consideration was given to licence suspension.

Prague Gaming & TECH Summit 2025 (25-26 March)

“However, because the operator immediately recognised their failings and worked with us to swiftly implement improvements, we instead opted for the largest enforcement payment in our history.”

Today’s action comes just a week after the Commission fined two operators owned by Kindred Group plc a combined £7.2 million and is the largest enforcement case taken on by the regulator. The previous largest was £17 million action taken against Entain in August last year.

Since the start of 2022 the Commission has concluded 26 enforcement cases with operators paying over £76 million because of regulatory failures.

Mr Rhodes said: “In the last 15 months we have taken unprecedented action against gambling operators, but we are now starting to see signs of improvement. There are indications that the industry is doing more to make gambling safer and reducing the possibility of criminal funds entering their businesses.

“Operators are using algorithms to spot gambling harms or criminal risk more quickly, interacting with consumers sooner, and generally having more effective policies and procedures in place.”

Social responsibility failures at William Hill businesses include:

- Having insufficient controls in place to protect new customers, and to effectively consider high velocity spend and duration of play until the customer may have been exposed to the risk of substantial losses in a short period:
  - One customer was allowed to open a new account and spend £23,000 in 20 minutes without any checks.
  - Another customer was allowed to open an account and spend £18,000 in 24 hours without any checks.
  - And a third customer was allowed to open a new account and spend £32,500 over two days without any checks. (Mr Green)
- Failing to identify certain customers at risk of experiencing gambling related harm and failing to carry out checks at an early stage in the customer’s journey – one customer lost £14,902 in 70 minutes. (Mr Green)
- Failing to identify risk of harm or intervene with certain customers earlier enough – one customer lost £54,252 in four weeks without the operator seeking income evidence, carrying out adequate checks, or using any other effective method to identify risk of harm. (WHG (International) Limited)
- Having insufficient controls which exposed new or returning customers to the risk of substantial losses in a short period of time – one customer opened his account and lost £11,400 over the first 30 days without being subject to sufficient checks and another customer did not have a telephone interaction until losses reached £45,800. (WHG (International) Limited)
- Failing to apply a 24-hour delay between receiving a request for an increase in a credit limit and granting it – one customer was allowed to immediately place a £100,000 bet when his credit limit had been set at £70,000. (WHG (International) Limited)
- Ineffective controls allowed 331 customers to gamble with WHG (International) Limited despite having self-excluded with Mr Green. (WHG (International) Limited)
- Failing to identify changes in the customer behaviour which should have provoked consideration of whether the customer was experiencing harm – a safer gambling interaction was conducted only after he had placed and had accepted an £18,000 bet (William Hill Organisation Ltd (WH Retail))
- Having insufficient controls in place to protect new customers, and to effectively consider high velocity spend and duration of play until the customer may have been exposed to the risk of substantial losses in a short period:
  - After its retail premise re-opened following the Covid pandemic lockdown, the operator allowed one customer to lose £10,600 in two days without a safer gambling interaction.
  - Despite being unknown and staking £42,253 in 130 bets over a three-day period, staff did not identify one customer as being at risk of experiencing harms associated with gambling or undertake any customer interactions. (William Hill Organisation Ltd (WH Retail))

Anti-money laundering (AML) failures include:

Allowing customers to deposit large amounts without conducting appropriate checks – one customer was able to spend and lose £70,134 in a month, another to lose £38,000 in five weeks and another to lose £36,000 in four days. (WHG (International) Limited)
Allowing customers to deposit large amounts without conducting appropriate checks – one customer deposited £73,535 and lost £14,068 in four months (Mr Green)
Customers were able to stake large amounts of money without being monitored or scrutinised to a high enough standard – the operator failed to request Source of Funds (SoF) evidence when one customer staked £19,000 in a single bet, did not obtain documentation from a customer who staked £39,324 and lost £20,360 in 12 days, and did not obtain SoF evidence from a customer who staked £276,942 and lost £24,395 over two months. (William Hill Organisation Ltd (WH Retail))
Policies, procedures and controls lacked guidance on appropriate action to take following the results of customer profiling and how its findings should be used to establish the appropriate outcome. (WHG (International) Limited) and (Mr Green)
Procedures and controls lacked hard stops to prevent further spend and mitigate against money laundering risks before customer risk profiling is completed. (WHG (International) Limited) and (Mr Green)
AML staff training provided insufficient information on risks and how to manage them (WHG (International) Limited) and (Mr Green)

All £19.2 million will be directed towards socially responsible purposes as part of a regulatory settlement.

Additional licence conditions will also be added to ensure a business board member oversees an improvement plan, and that it undergoes a third-party audit to assess that it is effectively implementing its AML and safer gambling policies, procedures and controls.

Australia

AUSTRAC Announces Expansion of Fintel Alliance

Published

6 hours ago

May 13, 2025

Niji Narayan

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Reading Time: 3 minutes

AUSTRAC has announced that it will expand its intelligence partnership, Fintel Alliance.

Fintel Alliance is a world leading public-private partnership where members and law enforcement work together and share data in real time to target serious crime.

AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said the Intelligence Division’s Fintel Alliance has been so productive that the agency will now make its collaborative data analytics hub a central function going forward.

“Together, we are able to do much more than any of us could do alone. Fintel Alliance members are working in partnership to fight financial crime – pooling data, sharing insights, and targeting major threats to strengthen financial systems and law enforcement action,” Mr Thomas said.

“This has generated real intelligence across a range of serious crimes including money laundering, child sexual exploitation, domestic violence, tax evasion, fraud and illegal phoenixing.

“For example, late last year we worked with our partners using the collaborative data analytics hub. We obtained all cash deposit transaction data under $10,000 from the four largest banks and jointly looked for criminal patterns. We had more than 50 million data points.

“Using the combined datasets, new software, and with our analysts and bank analysts working together in the same room, we were able to see things that were not visible before. In just a few days we identified major criminal networks now subject to law enforcement action. This shows the power of intelligence partnerships and collective effort.”

Fintel Alliance, first established in 2017, connects experts from major banks, remittance service providers and gambling operators, with law enforcement and security agencies in Australia and overseas.

AUSTRAC is building out the collaborative data analytics hub, a platform for data sharing which has helped identify criminal patterns and trends across the financial sector

This expansion also includes increasing its capacity with additional staff so that Fintel Alliance can contribute to more intelligence innovations and lay the groundwork for partnerships with tranche 2 entities. As part of the expansion, a seconded senior manager from ANZ Bank will help co-lead and build new pairings with industry and government members.

Last year Fintel Alliance produced a threat alert on money muling behaviour and identified an increase in micro-laundering, a process where funds are co-mingled with legitimate and illicit sources and moved at volume through low-value digital transfers.

Fintel Alliance also recently launched a campaign on “scambling”, a practice where unlicensed online gambling platforms advertise on social media and trick people to visit a scam website to participate in gambling.

Regional and remote Aboriginal communities are being targeted in this scam and Fintel Alliance is working with police, banks and other industry partners to raise awareness of “scambling”, to minimise harm to vulnerable Australians.

Fintel Alliance member and NAB Chief Financial Crime Risk Officer, Paul Jevtovic, said practical warnings for customers targeted by criminals is just one of many constructive outcomes achieved through Fintel collaboration.

“The nature of scambling – frequent small transactions – means it isn’t traditionally captured by mandatory reporting,” Mr Jevtovic said.

“However, combining data from multiple sources about cash transactions less than $10,000 allowed Fintel Alliance to more rapidly understand the nature and extent of criminality resulting in timely dissemination amongst members.

“I’ve seen this partnership and capability evolve since 2017 and its expansion is a modern approach not only to intelligence gathering, but more responsive regulation.”

Fintel Alliance Executive Board co-chair and ANZ Group Head of Financial Crime Risk, Cassandra Hewett, said ANZ is proud to have been actively involved in Fintel Alliance since its inception.

“The breadth of industry involvement reflects the value the financial industry sees from the public-private partnership,” Ms Hewett said.

“All members of Fintel Alliance continue to prioritise fighting financial crime and have strengthened our contribution to the collective effort – to prevent our businesses being infiltrated by organised crime, to protect our customers from being exploited, and to drive crime out of our communities.

“Criminals are adept at finding the weak points. By working together to develop and use new tools, technologies and fresh approaches to combat crime we can strengthen the ecosystem we all operate in.

“The collaborative data analytics hub allows Fintel Alliance members to connect our data in ways that weren’t previously possible, providing real time responses to criminal behaviour on already more than one occasion. We are excited to continue to develop these tools and drive real time responses, together.”

Fintel Alliance Executive Board co-chair and AUSTRAC Deputy CEO Intelligence John Moss, said Fintel Alliance expansion is key to AUSTRAC’s ability to disrupt criminal activity above and beyond the existing intelligence efforts and regulatory reach.

“Building even stronger partnerships is going to extend our ability to weed out criminal abuse of the financial system and hit organised crime where it hurts,” Dr Moss said.

“As AUSTRAC prepares to welcome tranche 2 industries to our regulated population, the expansion will no doubt continue to play an even bigger part in disrupting criminal activity.”

The post AUSTRAC Announces Expansion of Fintel Alliance appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Carey Theil

Greyhound Advocates Applaud Oregon Governor Tina Kotek for Signing Historic Internet Betting Ban on Greyhound Races

Published

1 day ago

May 12, 2025

GamingAmericas.com

greyhound-advocates-applaud-oregon-governor-tina-kotek-for-signing-historic-internet-betting-ban-on-greyhound-races

The largest greyhound protection group in the world thanked Oregon Governor Tina Kotek for signing a bill to outlaw the processing of internet bets on dog races, calling the new law a landmark victory for greyhound advocates.

“This is the biggest victory for American greyhound advocates since Florida outlawed dog racing in 2018. The walls are closing in on the final remnants of this cruel industry,” said GREY2K USA Executive Director Carey Theil.

Internet wagers on dog races can only be legally processed in two states, Oregon and North Dakota. More than $155 million was gambled on dog racing in 2024 through these Advance Deposit Wagering platforms, with Oregon processing 57% of all internet greyhound bets nationwide. House Bill 3020 phases out the processing of greyhound bets by July 1, 2027. It also ends remote gambling on dog races in Oregon, known as simulcasting.

Greyhound racing is a dying industry, and only continues to exist at two tracks in West Virginia. Florida voters outlawed the activity in 2018 by a vote of 69% to 31%, closing twelve operational racetracks. A bill to prohibit gambling on dog racing nationwide was introduced in the 118th Congress. The bipartisan Greyhound Protection Act earned the support of 80 cosponsors and more than 250 humane groups, anti-gambling organizations, and local animal shelters.

Since 2022, greyhound simulcasting has been outlawed in the seven states of Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Oregon. When all of these laws take effect, gambling on greyhound racing will only be legal in fourteen states.

All mainstream animal protection groups oppose dog racing due to animal welfare concerns. At the final two tracks in West Virginia, state records indicate that 487 greyhounds were injured in 2024 including 162 dogs that suffered broken bones and thirteen greyhounds that died. Thousands of dogs also endure lives of confinement at West Virginia tracks, kept in cages barely large enough for them to stand up or turn around for long hours each day.

Formed in February of 2001, GREY2K USA is the largest greyhound protection organization in the US with more than 300,000 supporters. As a non-profit 501(c)4 organization, the group works to pass stronger greyhound protection laws and end the cruelty of dog racing on both national and international levels. GREY2K USA also promotes the rescue and adoption of greyhounds across the globe.

The post Greyhound Advocates Applaud Oregon Governor Tina Kotek for Signing Historic Internet Betting Ban on Greyhound Races appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.

Compliance Updates

UK Gambling Commission Publishes Further Data on the Gambling Industry in Great Britain

Published

1 day ago

May 12, 2025

Niji Narayan

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Reading Time: < 1 minute

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has published further data on the gambling industry in Great Britain.

This data, sourced from operators, reflects the period between March 2020 and March 2025, inclusive, and covers online and in-person gambling covering Licensed Betting Operators (LBOs) found on Britain’s high streets.

This release compares Quarter 4 (Q4) of financial year 2024 to 2025, with Q4 of 2023 to 2024, looking at how the market has changed in comparative periods over a year.

The latest operator data shows:

• online total Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) in Q4 (January to March) was £1.45 billion, an increase of 7% from Q4 the previous year. The overall number of total bets and/or spins increased 5% Year-on-Year (YoY), to 25.2 billion, whilst the average monthly active accounts in the quarter increased 2%, to 13.5 million.

• real event betting GGY increased by 5% YoY to £596 million. The number of bets decreased 1%, while the average monthly active accounts in Q4 decreased 2%.

• slots GGY increased 11% to £689 million YoY. The number of spins increased 6% to 23.4 billion while the average monthly active accounts in Q4 increased 6% to 4.5 million per month.

• the number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour increased by 5% YoY to 10.1 million. The average session length stayed consistent at 17 minutes. Approximately 6% of all sessions lasted more than one hour, the same as the Q4 the previous year.

• LBO GGY decreased by 3% to £554 million in Q4 2024 to 2025, compared to the same quarter last year. The number of total bets and spins decreased by 5% to 3.1 billion.

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