Five UK Casinos Punished For Regulatory Failings

It was a dark day for some land based casino operators in the UK as the gambling regulator the Gambling Commission agreed regulatory settlements with four operators and fined another for anti-money laundering & social responsibility failings.

Shaftesbury Casino and Clockfair Limited the operator of the Broadway Casino in Birmingham will both pay £260,000 in regulatory settlements.

In particular for Shaftsbury it was found that between 2013 and 2019 one customer lost a total of nearly £220,000 but not once did the company offer any responsible gambling interactions with the customer in that period.

Another time a different customer deposited £2 million but was not asked for source of funds but conducted an open source check. Along with this another customer deposited £631,000 but never proved source of funds.

Les Croupiers Casino in Cardiff settled with paying £202,500 after failings including a 22-year-old who lost around £20,000 with the company saying he was a company director and could afford the losses. Another occasion a player was given a £6,000 daily and a monthly loss limit of £20,000 but when checked bank details only had a balance of £5,000 in their account.

A&S Leisure Group, which operates Napoleons Casinos was given a fine of £377,340 and a warning for breaching regulations but no more details was given on them.

Double Diamond who operates the Rainbow Casino in Birmingham breached regulations when a customer lost £46,000 without showing proof of funds, the operator then suspended their membership because of no proof of funds.

All the operators involve have promise to update and their AML and social responsibility policies.

Richard Watson, Commission Executive Director, said: “These failings were identified as part of our ongoing drive to raise standards across the whole gambling industry. Every single operator must ensure they are following rules that are in place to make gambling safer and prevent it being a source of crime.”