Gaming firm to pay £1.6m as Gambling Commission warns industry to 'step up'

The Gambling Commission has told the industry to "step up" after making Platinum Gaming, part of the Kindred Group, pay £1.6 million for failing to identify gambling harm and prevent money laundering.

The industry regulator launched an investigation following reports that a convicted fraudster had spent £629,420 of stolen money with Platinum Gaming, which operates Unibet's website.

The commission said the customer's deposits were so high and losses so significant that Platinum Gaming should have considered refusing to take the customer's business but instead allowed them to continue gambling.

Investigations also revealed the operator breached anti-money laundering regulations.

As part of a settlement with the commission Platinum Gaming returned £629,420 to the fraudster’s victims and will pay £990,200 in lieu of a financial penalty.

The commission's executive director Richard Watson said: "There were weaknesses in Platinum Gaming’s systems and as a consequence, more than half a million pounds of stolen money flowed through the business.

"This is not acceptable and I would urge all operators to carefully read this case and learn lessons so they don’t make the same mistakes."

Watson added: "This is yet another example of us taking firm action against online operators who fail to protect consumers or implement effective safeguards against money laundering.

"We must see the industry stepping up and providing consumers in Great Britain with the safest and fairest gambling market in the world. Where we continue to see failings, we will continue to take action."

Kindred Group said they accepted the commission's findings and added in an official statement: "Kindred deeply regrets that the case, which dates back to 2017, has occurred and that we failed to fully follow our own procedures.

"Compliance, integrity and customer safety are fundamental parts of our sustainability framework and as such at the very top of our corporate strategy.

"As a group, we monitor, act on and report all suspicious behaviour we detect, which was done in this specific case. However, in this specific case we did not act quickly enough."

Earlier in the week the Gambling Commission told online gaming operator Gamesys to pay £1.2m for similar offences.

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