Gibraltar Regulator Reaches £45k Settlement With An Unnamed Operator

Gibraltar’s Gambling Commissioner (GGC) has reached a £45,000 settlement in lieu of a financial penalty with an unnamed license holder for a number of operational failures.

What happened?

The operator in question was deemed to not have enough safeguards in place for players in the 18-24 age bracket in individual cases that were subject to review. The GGC noted the operator has incrementally improved policies and procedures regarding a higher risk customer cohort, but said these were not deemed to be sufficiently effective.

The GGC also found there was an identifiable error on one customer account, where an internally revised net deposit limit had not been applied, after the operator had received customer documentation showing source of funds and wealth which would have rendered the previous net deposit limit inappropriate. This was attributed to human error by the license holder, which accepted the net deposit should have been revised downwards.

Meanwhile, the GGC found there was no evidence that a recent audit of anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism/counter proliferation financing systems and controls had been carried out. The operator has since taken steps to securing a prompt independent review.

Previous warning

These issues had been the subject of previous public statements and the GGC believed that while there was no suggestion of bad faith, the operator had been slow to act when previously being prompted to rectify the identified issues immediately. The GGC said the learning points from the case are that license holders should immediately act on advice when it comes to remediation.

The GGC said:

“For the avoidance of doubt this case concerned sporadic control failings and there was no evidence of any cases where money laundering or terrorist financing had taken place. The license holder has generally put a lot of resource into the compliance and governance area and is considered fit and proper to hold a licence.

“In addition, a ‘threshold’ approach needs to be bolstered by internal triggers that detect higher risk behaviour that occur below general thresholds, utilising a risk-based approach.”

Busy month for GGC

This marks the second time the regulator has taken enforcement action against an operator this month, after Kindred Group, operator of Unibet, was warned by the GGC, following a £10 million fine it received by British regulator the Gambling Commission for social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) failings.

On that occasion, the GGC issued a formal caution to Platinum Gaming Limited – operator of Unibet.co.uk and UK.bingo.com. Platinum Gaming conducts its UK operations while being dual licensed in Great Britain and Gibraltar.

When a Gibraltar license holder is subject to a regulatory sanction in another jurisdiction for AML/ CFT/ CPF offences, the case is reviewed by the GGC. However, the GGC chose not to take further enforcement action.

GGC had called for lighter tax increase

The GGC was also in the news recently regarding tax increases in the UK, when Gibraltar’s Gambling Commissioner and Executive Director for the Government of Gibraltar Andrew Lyman spoke publicly for the first time on the issue.

This week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced remote gaming duty will increase from 21% to 40% of gross profit and remote general betting duty will go up from 15% to 25% of gross profit. Lyman had argued on his LinkedIn page there could be room to increase remote gaming duty up by about four or five percentage points from the 21% rate.