- 888 Holdings (DI)
- 18 April 2024 17:21:19
Source: Sharecast
The Gambling Commission said on Tuesday that 888 UK Limited, which operates 78 websites including 888.com, has also received an official warning and will undergo "extensive" independent auditing.
This is the second time the business has been fined. In 2017, it was forced to pay out £7.8m for failing vulnerable customers.
888’s social responsibility failures included, among other things: 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 taking into account the Commission’s formal guidance on customer interaction; giving a customer they knew was an NHS worker earning £1,400 a month a monthly deposit cap of £1,300.
Money laundering failures included: implementing a policy where customers were allowed to deposit £40,000 before carrying out source of funds (SOF) checks; accepting verbal assurances from customers as to employment income and being reliant on open-source information to validate SOF; and not setting out which documents should be requested as part of SOF checks.
Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes 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."
