UKGC Fines TGP Europe for AML and Social Responsibility Failings

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has fined gambling operator TGP Europe for a total of £316,250 as part of a regulatory settlement after investigations discovered social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures. The operator, which runs 19 websites, will also receive an official warning and have conditions added to its license.

Social responsibility failures included:

• Allowing customers to continue to gamble after hitting multiple safer gambling alerts without intervention
• Relying on automated, as opposed to human, interactions when customers hit safer gambling alerts
• Not assessing the effectiveness of these interactions or whether additional steps were required such as a telephone interaction.

Anti-money laundering failures included:

• Not having a money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment which adequately addressed risks, such as customers providing false or stolen identification documentation and risks linked to complex or unusually large transactions
• Not adequately considering and mitigating the money laundering risks posed by their business-to-business relationships
• Having ineffective policies and procedures in relation to due diligence undertaken prior to white label agreements.

Additional licence conditions setting out action the licensee must take to ensure thorough due diligence checks are conducted have been added to the operator’s licence.