Jumpman Gaming and Progress Play slapped with combined £675,000 fine

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has issued fines to two online casino businesses that run a total of 444 websites for anti-money laundering (AML) and customer protection failings.

Jumpman Gaming has been fined £500,000 following multiple breaches of its licence conditions involving money laundering and social responsibility.

The Guernsey-based white-label provider has agreements with Geoff Banks for his online casino, as well as having the same agreements for sites such as Slot Shack and Online Casino London.

The investigation UKGC found that Jumpman failed to implement effective AML policies, procedures and controls.

The regulator also found deficiencies in the firm’s responsible gambling policies, procedures, controls and practices, including weakness in its implementation process.

The UKGC noted Jumpman had failed to implement adequate measures to identify and assess the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as shortcomings in its customer due diligence policy

One such failing saw Jumpman fail to instigate customer interactions after one customer lost £15,000 in less than a month without sufficient evidence being gathered which confirmed if they could afford to.

The same customer lost more than £11,000 in two days during the peak of the Covid-19 lockdown.

In terms of due diligence failings, one customer was requested to share documents when a deposit trigger had been hit. The customer failed to produce the documents but their account was not suspended until they had lost £23,500.

The assessment was carried out between February 2020 and July 2020 using a sample of customers who opened accounts.

Progress Play, which has a white label agreement with controversial casino and sportsbook BK8, was fined £175,718 for failing to comply with Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the social responsibility code provision.

This passage of text informs operators that they need to take appropriate measures to minimise customer risk and there had to be a record of customer interaction, which Progress Play did not have.

Progress Play was found to have given a customer 14 days to provide information to support source of funds documentation and during this period they were able to continue gambling.

This approach did not sufficiently mitigate money laundering risks, said the UKGC.

Progress Play accepted it had failed to undertake any review into the effectiveness or impact of its interactions with customers. The firm also conceded it had failed to implement proactive gambling control measures, or conduct adequate affordability assessments.

Progress Play has said that its fine will be directed towards delivering the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms in the settlement. The provider has also agreed to publish a statement of facts in relation to the case, and it will pay £12,466.35 towards the investigation cost.

Leanne Oxley, UKGC director of enforcement and intelligence, said: “We will always clamp down on operators who fail in their obligations to keep gambling safe and crime-free. We encourage other operators to consider the failings identified in these cases carefully, and consider what improvements they can make in their own businesses.”