THE UK Gambling Commission announced, this Thursday (20), the imposition of a fine of £650 thousand (around R$4.5 million) on the company Videoslots Limited, after an investigation by the European Commission revealed flaws in anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility standards.
According to the UKGCthe company’s monitoring systems did not adequately detect risky behavior among players. In several cases, customers have exceeded their monthly deposit limits and lost thousands of pounds in just a few days, without any intervention from the operator.
The failures also involved deficiencies in controls to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CTF). One of the cases highlighted revealed that a client moved more than £75,000 in just 16 days, using prepaid digital vouchers and transferring the amounts to several bank accounts — without adequate verification of the origin of the funds.
Commission Enforcement Director John Pierce said the company’s limits were ineffective and controls “were not applied to the standards we expect.” According to him, there was excessive dependence on automatic algorithms that did not identify suspicious activities in a timely manner. Pierce also highlighted that anonymous payment methods, such as digital vouchers, require “strict controls”.
“In addition to the fine and the necessary measures already taken by Videoslots to meet our conclusions, the operator must also undergo an independent audit, and we will closely monitor the result,” he added.
The Commission reported that it will continue to monitor the implementation of corrective measures and reinforced that operators using digital payment systems must immediately report the use of these methods to the authorities, due to the high risk of money laundering and irregular betting.
Fonte: Gaming365 – Brasil
