Rank Group Pays £5m for AML and Social Responsibility Failures

Grosvenor Casinos owner Rank Group will pay £5 million as part of a settlement agreed with the Gambling Commission after an investigation by the British regulator found anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility failures.

Operators Grosvenor Casinos Limited, Grosvenor Casinos (GC) Limited and Gaming Group Limited, who are all owned by Rank Group and run 51 casinos across Great Britain, will be subject to a third-party audit which will aim to ensure they are effectively implementing anti-money laundering and safer gambling policies, procedures and controls.

The failures explained

The AML failings included Rank not updating its policies to include changes to the Money Laundering Regulations in 2020, and implementing AML policies which allowed inconsistent decisions to be applied to customers with elevated money-laundering risk.

Unclear policies which resulted in inappropriate risk levels being ascribed to high-risk customers without appropriate scrutiny were implemented, and due diligence checks were not carried out.

The social responsibility failures included the inability to carry out safer gambling interactions with a customer while they were losing £50,000.

Rank was also found to have not recorded any safer gambling interactions with a customer who won approximately £260,000 in a short period and then lost around £250,000 in 12 days, as well as not carrying out safer gambling instructions with a customer who returned after self-excluding, until they had lost £25,000.

Crypto unchecked

In the case of Grosvenor Casinos Limited specifically, records showed a customer had used cryptocurrency assets as their source of funds and a customer identifying as a student from China failed to cause the risk level of either customer to be increased. The entirety of the £5 million settlement will be paid into the government’s Consolidated Fund.

Sue Young, Commission Executive Director of Operations, said:

"Larger enforcement cases are often associated with online gambling but, as today’s announcement shows, the risks of anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures are equally alive in the land-based sector.

“We would advise all premises-based operators to take a careful look at this case and ensure their own business is not making the same mistakes, and therefore they do not face costly and inevitable Commission action.”

Rank has previous

There have been a few previous examples of Rank having to make payments following operational failures. In 2015, Rank Digital Gaming surrendered £950,000 in profits that resulted from AML and social responsibility shortcomings.

This was followed by a £500,000 fine for Rank in 2018, for failing to follow Commission rules which protect problem gamblers.

Meanwhile, in 2022, Rank Digital Gaming paid more than £700,000 for AML and social responsibility failures. The frequency of AML and social responsibility failures may have played some part in the size of the settlement in the latest breach being as high as £5 million.

Taxation argument

Figures at Rank have spoken out in recent times against the idea of increased taxation. In September, Rank Group CEO Richard Harris told investors an increase in machine games duty (MGD) would “make no economic sense” and would be “nonsensical”, warning that raising the rate to 40% will cause job losses for the operator.

In June, cross-party think tank the Social Markets Foundation called for MGD on Category B machines in the UK to be raised to 40% of net takings, which would be double the current rate of 20% of revenue generated on gaming machines in both casinos and bingo halls.