ProgressPlay Fined £1 Million by UK Gambling Commission

ProgressPlay Limited which runs 134 websites, has been fined £1 million by the UK Gambling Commission for breaches in Anti-Money laundering and social responsibility failings. The company has also been given a warning and is expected to undergo a third-party audit following the conclusion of the licence review to ensure it is effectively implementing anti-money laundering and social responsibility policies, procedures and controls.

Anti-money laundering failures included:

• the Licensee did not conduct an appropriate Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (MLTF) risk assessment and did not implement appropriate controls to minimise the risk of MLTF
• not considering all risks associated with its business and therefore failed to take a sufficiently risk-based approach to AML
• failing to sufficiently scrutinise transactions carried out during the course of customer relationships—including, where necessary, verifying the Source of Funds (SoF)—to ensure those transactions were consistent with the casino’s understanding of the customer, their business activities, and their risk profile.

Social responsibility failures included:

• not having in place adequate systems and processes to effectively monitor customer activity at the point of account opening – this meant that early identification of any potential gambling related harm or the implementation of appropriate interventions was put at risk
• employing a customer interactions policy which failed to adequately address the elements of identify, act and evaluate set out in the Remote Customer Interaction section of the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice
• failure to implement adequate processes to understand the impact of individual interactions and actions on a customer’s behaviour, the continued risk of potential harm and therefore whether and, if so, what further action was needed.

This is the second occasion ProgressPlay has faced enforcement action – in 2022 the operator paid £175,718 for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.

John Pierce, Director of Enforcement and Intelligence, said: “Gambling businesses must have robust policies and procedures in place to protect consumers and ensure appropriate anti-money laundering controls are maintained. These measures must be actively implemented and regularly tested to confirm their effectiveness.

“This case marks the second time ProgressPlay Limited has been subject to enforcement action by the Gambling Commission. Its failure to meet AML obligations, along with the gaps identified in its social responsibility processes, are unacceptable.

“As part of the regulatory outcome, ProgressPlay is now required to undergo an independent third-party audit to assess the adequacy of its compliance arrangements across these areas.

“Operators should be in no doubt: repeated regulatory breaches will result in increasingly severe enforcement action.

“We urge all operators to examine the failings identified in this case and take proactive steps to strengthen their own systems and controls.”

Read ProgressPlay Limited full penalty.

The breaches occurred over various dates between August 2021 and August 2024.