UK Gambling Commision fines operator Greentube £1m for regulatory failures

This is the second time that the company has faced similar action. In 2021, they were ordered to pay £685,000 for very similar failures.

John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement, explained more about the fine:

“This case arose from a follow-up compliance assessment designed to ensure the operator had continued to apply lessons learned from previous regulatory action.

“While we noted that the business had made significant general improvements, further regulatory breaches were still identified. The operator was subsequently required to swiftly put in place an effective action plan designed to remedy all of the identified failings.

“We want to remind all operators that any business found to breach rules designed to keep gambling safe and free from crime for a second time should expect increasingly stringent enforcement action. Any failure to uphold anti-money laundering standards is unacceptable, and today’s action reflects the gravity of the breaches identified.

The fine itself relates to various forms of social responsibility and anti-money laundering rules that are in place to protect customers. These failures included:

• not fully implementing its own policy aimed at ensuring customer limits are based on regular, sustainable income – as opposed to one-off or irregular forms of income
• not fully implementing its own processes aimed at ensuring documents customers supplied were genuine
• not fully implementing its controls to identify indicators of vulnerability or potential harm in a timely manner. One customer supplied a bank statement as proof of address that had a negative opening and closing balance and included numerous transactions to another gambling operator, but the information was not reviewed or escalated until the customer had deposited £4,000 over four months.

This is a verbatim statement from the UK Gambling Commission, who also went on to explain further failures in the prevention of money laundering. They explained that “one customer provided a bank statement showing complex and unusual transactions – including over £100,000 being transferred in and out of the account and a negative closing balance – yet the statement was only scrutinised and escalated four months later.”

The company was also found to have ignored their own guidelines relating to careers that could be perceived as high risk, such as those where people had access to funds. Greentube has not yet commented on the fines.