The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) announced that it found that BV Gambling Limited, trading as the popular online gambling operator BetVictor, violated some fairness, anti-money laundering, and social responsibility rules. As a result, the company will be forced to pay a total of £2 million for its failures.
The gambling operators, which currently owns and runs a number of digital gambling platforms, including betvictor.com, betvictor.mobi, parimatch.co.uk, heartbingo.co.uk, and hbingo.co.uk, is set to pay the money as part of its settlement with the UK gambling regulatory body. The proceeds from the settlement will be redirected to the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.
The Director of Enforcement at the UKGC, Leanne Oxley, confirmed that the UK gambling watchdog remains focused on ensuring a safe, fair and crime-free gambling industry in the country.
Ms Oxley further noted that BetVictor failed its consumers by violating rules aimed exactly at achieving the aforementioned objectives. She said that the Gambling Commission will continue to make sure that gambling businesses comply with the regulatory rules and non-compliance will never be considered a viable business option for companies that offer their services to local people.
Various Breaches of the 2005 Gambling Act and Licence Conditions Found
Gambling companies that hold a UK operating licence are legally obliged to make sure their gambling services comply with the provisions of the 2005 Gambling Act, their licence conditions and in accordance with the licensing objectives.
As mentioned above, the UK Gambling Commission found a number of key failures on BV Gaming, t/a BetVictor in terms of social responsibility, money laundering and fairness:
- Violation of Licence Condition 7.1.1, paragraph 1 regarding fairness and transparency of its terms and practices;
- Violation of Licence Condition 12.1.1, paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 regarding anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing rules;
- Violation of Licence Condition 12.1.2, paragraph 1 regarding anti-money laundering for gambling companies based in overseas jurisdictions;
- Violation of Social Responcibility Code (SRC) provision 3.4.1 regarding customer interaction;
- Violation of Social Responsibility Code (SRC) provision 5.1.9, paragraph 2 regarding other marketing requirements
The aforementioned failures were registered in the period from January 1st, 2019 to March 12th, 2020.
The UKGC confirmed that the online gambling operator submitted a remedial action plan within 2 days after receiving the notice that the country’s gambling regulator would start a licence review as of April 7th, 2020.
The gambling regulatory body of the UK took into account the aforementioned remedial action. The two parties reached a settlement in line with the UKGC’s Statement of principles for licensing and regulation. As a result of the settlement, BV Gaming, t/a BetVictor is set to divest gross gambling yield (GGY) of £352,000 that was gained as a result of the failures. The online gambling operator will pay a total of £1,728,000 as a substitute for a financial penalty.
- Author
Olivia Cole
