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UKGC Imposes £9.4M Fine on 888 UK Limited Over Social Responsibility and AML Failures

Published

2 years ago

March 2, 2022

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has imposed a fine of £9.4 million on 888 UK Limited for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.

888 UK Limited, which operates 78 websites including 888.com, has also received an official warning and will have to undergo extensive independent auditing.

The penalty package marks the second time 888 has faced an enforcement action by the UKGC who in 2017 ordered the FTSE250 operator to pay £7.8 million due to its failure to protect vulnerable customers.

Andrew Rhodes, Chief Executive of the UKGC, said: “The circumstances of the last enforcement action may be different but both cases involve failing consumers – and this is something that is not acceptable.

“Today’s fine is one of our largest to date, and all should be clear that if there is a repeat of the failures at 888 then we have to seriously consider the suitability of the operator to uphold the licensing objectives and keep gambling safe and crime-free.

“Consumers in Britain deserve to know that when they gamble, they are participating in a leisure activity where operators play their part in keeping them safe and are carrying out checks to ensure money is crime-free.”

Social responsibility failures included:

not effectively identifying players at risk of harm because their policies determined financial checks should be carried out after a customer had deposited £40,000
not carrying out a customer interaction with a customer who lost £37,000 in a six week period during the Covid-19 pandemic
not taking into account the Commission’s formal guidance on customer interaction
giving a customer they knew was an NHS worker earning £1400 a month a monthly deposit cap of £1300
most of the interactions conducted predominately consisted of an email just detailing the responsible gambling tools and did not require a customer response
during a Commission assessment, there was no evidence of the operator proactively placing restrictions on accounts where social responsibility concerns were raised
not ensuring that if a customer has multiple accounts those accounts are managed for customer interaction holistically and financial limits can be implemented across all accounts. In one example, a customer had one of his 11 accounts restricted because of Source of Funds (SOF) concerns, but he was allowed to open three more accounts and continue gambling.

Money laundering failures included:

implementing a policy where customers were allowed to deposit £40,000 before carrying out SOF checks
accepting verbal assurances from customers as to employment income and being reliant on open-source information to validate SOF
not setting out which documents should be requested as part of SOF checks
allowing one customer to spend £65,835 in just 5 months without SOF checks being carried out
not effectively implementing its own policies which stated that customers have 10 days to present SOF documentation before their account was restricted. In one case a customer’s SOF were not requested until three weeks after the 10 day trigger and lost £15,000 during that period.

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Sends company confirmed its participation in the ICE London Conference 2024

Published

4 months ago

January 17, 2024

Zoltan Tundik

ICE is the global showcase of innovative technologies, home to 600+ international brands providing access to products and services designed to enhance growth potential. Sends financial company confirmed its participation in the conference inviting to the brand’s stand for meetings.

The 6th of February is the opening day of ICE London 2024. The Sends team will spend three days of the conference meeting the current partners and establishing relationships with new ones in London. On its LinkedIn page, the company noticed that it had set up a stand to provide all the information about activity and business propositions, to meet with associates, and to engage with conference participants.

“Sends team is eager to meet the partners and new people at ICE London 2024. This event is iconic among gaming companies and market players. Organizers predict record attendance for the last London edition. We can’t miss this global event’s opportunities” , commented Anastasiia Pervushyna, Director/MLRO in Sends.

One of the shareholders (owners) of this company is Alona Shevtsova, a businesswoman, philanthropist, and active participant in the Ukrainian and UK FinTech community.

“Recent international industry events during the past year have already clearly shown the value and significance of in-person events for our industry and we expect that to be very evident in London as well”, Alona Shevtsova added.

Sends provides Internet acquiring, multicurrency personal and business accounts. Opening a SEPA/SWIFT/Faster Payments bank account is available within 48 hours after submitting the necessary documents. Sends is available in the web and app versions.

In 2025, the ICE London conference will relocate to Barcelona, Spain. The historic edition of the world’s largest and most international gaming expo ends in Great Britain. This country has hosted the event since 2013.

ICE London 2024 will be held from the 6th to 8th February at ExCeL London. To schedule a meeting with Sends representatives, please use [email protected] email or the conference application.

*Sends is a trade name of SMARTFLOW PAYMENTS LIMITED.

SMARTFLOW PAYMENTS LIMITED is registered in England and Wales (Company number 11070048).

Gaming

It’s time to speed up AI: Slotegrator presented new exciting solutions at iGB L!ve 2023

Published

10 months ago

July 25, 2023

Hunor Pal

A new era in the iGaming industry has begun: AI-powered solutions are now becoming affordable. Slotegrator presented the new AI-powered capabilities of its turnkey online casino platform at iGB L!ve 2023 in Amsterdam.

Every year, Slotegrator presents its newest innovations at iGB L!ve. This year, the company added several new features to its turnkey online casino platform, basing the additions on the results of internal customer research and global market analysis.

Upcoming trends are a constant source of speculation in the iGaming industry. As an industry trendsetter itself, Slotegrator knows what to bet on; last year, the company predicted rapid AI growth, and these capabilities have already been integrated into the company’s solutions.

The upgrades include:

The business intelligence (BI) module has become an Artificial BI module. Now it not only helps operators track the analytical data they need to make strategic decisions, but allows them to compare their project with others that operate in the same market. It’s an effective tool for analyzing competitors’ activities and to improve the entire business strategy.
ChatGPT was integrated to offer operators 24/7 business consultation. While the strategy will ultimately be up to the casino operator, ChatGPT’s capacity to offer advice can prove invaluable.
Fraud Detection (for collecting Big Data to reduce risk) with AI makes it easy for casino operators to set the parameters of what constitutes potentially fraudulent behavior and then segment players accordingly and take action when necessary.

Also, Slotegrator integrated a multiplayer chat function – an effective retention tool that emphasizes the value of live communication and offers opportunities for networking and creating player communities. The solution will see the addition of AI capabilities as well.

“This is just the first set of innovations. We are planning to use AI to boost our platform even further. The industry standards are changing, so the market can’t afford to use old tools now. Our participation in iGB L!ve 2023 demonstrated this completely,” says Dmytro Taran, COO at Slotegrator.

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Casino Guru Awards presents The Most Ethical Approach to Marketing category

Published

12 months ago

June 5, 2023

Gaspar Incze

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Casino Guru Awards’ 2^nd edition is coming back on the core promise to provide one of the most equitable and fairest formats for industry stakeholders to distinguish their companies across numerous categories focused on responsibility and customer care. Since the first event, Casino Guru Awards has been actively thinking how to best capture the myriad efforts put into making the industry a better, safer, and more transparent place for consumers and businesses.

This has led the team to introduce The Most Ethical Approach to Marketing, nominations for which are now open. Companies applying in this category will have the opportunity to demonstrate that they apply robust standards to their advertising practices in making their gambling messages heard.

This category aims to recognize iGaming companies that showcase a strong commitment to responsible marketing practices. Our judges will be evaluating the style and content of marketing efforts and materials, such as newsletters, social media campaigns, and others, with a clear focus on ethical marketing practices and responsible messaging. Apart from Casino Guru’s own judges, all applicants will be evaluated by an external panel of industry experts with vast experience in marketing, including:

Shane Stafford, Interim Head of Channel Marketing at Three Ireland
Martin Calvert, Marketing Director at ICS-digital
Dmitry Belianin, Chief Commercial Officer at Parimatch
James Bennett, Group Communications at EveryMatrix

The jury will weigh in on the strategies and tactics used by all nominees to promote their products and services. Applicants will be expected to clearly and unambiguously demonstrate how their marketing materials promote their brands while also accurately representing the risks associated with gambling and offering truthful and transparent information that is not ambiguous.

Casino Guru Awards Project Lead Daniela Kianicová, who is also one of the judges for the category, said: “The introduction of The Most Ethical Approach to Marketing category is a continuation of our ongoing commitment to making sure that we create a format that is ground-breaking and addresses the most urgent aspects of our industry, and shine light on the true torchbearers that have unflinching attitude towards doing the right thing.

We are looking forward to seeing robust examples of marketing ethics that put the consumer front and center and provide accurate, truthful, factual, and unambiguous information. An experienced panel of marketers will be weighing in to help shortlist, evaluate, and ultimately pick a winner in this important category.”

Nominations for Casino Guru Awards opened on May 15, 2023, and will be going through October 31, 2023. Shortlisted companies will be revealed on December 1, 2023, when the voting for Voice of the People category will begin as well. The official event will take place in February 2024.