Dutch gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has imposed a fine of €531,250 on Malta-based Tipico Co. Ltd. for illegally offering online games of chance to Dutch consumers.

The online games of chance were offered via the tipico.com website. A starting fine of 200,000 euros applies for this violation. The fine was increased 3 times by 75,000 euros: once for the bonuses on offer and the large number of games and bets offered, once for the use of an inactivity fee and once for offering live betting.

This form of betting carries a higher addiction risk than bets that can only be made before the start of matches. Furthermore, the fine was increased because the age of the players was not visibly verified. Tipico’s website can no longer be reached with a Dutch IP address.

A gambling business must pay a £760,000 fine and undergo extensive independent auditing after a Commission investigation revealed social responsibility and money laundering failures.

EU Lotto – which operates the lottoland.co.uk website – has also received a formal warning for the failures which occurred between October 2019 and November 2020.

Social responsibility requirement failures included neglecting to take into account the Commission’s formal customer interaction guidance.

Examples included:

• customers frequently changing deposit limits not being considered as markers of harm
• no evidence of suitable financial and affordability assessments being conducted to identify whether a customer was being harmed or at risk of harm
• customer interactions predominately consisted of an email detailing the responsible gambling tools available and did not require a customer response – there was little evidence of interactions being adapted depending on the extent of potential harm.

Anti-money laundering failures included:

• not effectively reviewing or analysing bank statements provided by customers to prove address
• not restricting customer accounts following source of funds (SoF) requests
• allowing customers to register third-party debit cards (such as those in a different name to the customer) to their account
• relying too heavily on ineffective threshold triggers and generally lacking information regarding how much a customer should be allowed to spend based on income, wealth or any other risk factors.

Helen Venn, Commission Executive Director, said: “This case, like other recent enforcement action, was the result of planned compliance activity. All operators should be very aware that we will not hesitate to take firm action against those who fail to meet the high standards we expect for consumers in Britain.”

Read EU Lotto’s full penalty on the Commission’s regulatory sanctions register.

Nigel Birrell, CEO of Lottoland commented: “Lottoland is fully committed to ensuring the highest standards of compliance, including its anti-money laundering and social responsibility obligations in all of the jurisdictions in which it operates. The Gambling Commission fine was related to legacy issues around some of our compliance controls which have now been addressed. Lottoland  has extensive compliance measures in place and we are confident that our current policies and processes meet all relevant standards. 

Remedial action taken included significantly increased investment in our compliance function, more than doubling headcount, alongside a host of other initiatives including bringing in third party support, enhancing training and a review of key policies. In addition, we  recently committed to building our individual processes into an automated system to improve the system even further. “

SJM Holdings is expecting that the authorities will extend its gaming licence beyond the current expiration date of June 26, 2022. It expects the extension won’t be for twenty years but for around ten years.

During an investor meeting, the company said that the concession length would be longer than five years yet more limited than 20 years.

The current city’s gaming laws state that licences can be extended for up to five years from the original 20-year term. SJM Holdings and other operators have attended a public consultation session and asked for more information on the government’s proposed changes to the city’s gaming laws.

Casino operators also said the government should give more details on the proposal that gaming concessionaires should be part held by a Macau resident.

Buddy Lam Chi Seng, Galaxy Entertainment senior vice president of public relations, asked if the possibility of electing “delegates” to Macau’s gaming concessions to have a “greater checking” limit on the activity of the gaming firms could have a potential impact on gaming firms’ daily operations.

Ku Mei Leng, chief-of-office of Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance, answered that the public authority didn’t have any “predetermined positions” on the themes, as it was still collecting opinions from the industry regarding the proposed changes.

He noted that a delegate system is already used to monitor other forms of public concession. According to previous reports, government delegates would be sent to gaming concessionaires to enable the direct monitoring of daily operations.