The British Gambling Commission have been flexing their muscles again this week. After fining Genesis Global Limited £3.8m, they issued a warning to the UK’s gambling industry.
Helen Venn is the executive director of the Gambling Commission. Talking about the decision to fine Genesis Global Limited, she said “all gambling businesses should pay very close attention to this case. The executive director added that the Commission “will use all tools at its disposal to ensure consumer safety.” Those tools include stopping a business from operating their services.
Last August saw Genesis Global Limited be suspended from operating in Britain. The suspension was lifted in October after the company made significant compliance improvements but that was far from the end of the matter. Their suspension came after investigations were held that indicated there were significant failures in terms of social responsibility and money laundering.
The social responsibility failures included one customer who spent over £245,000 on their sites in just three months with no action taken. A couple of other customers also spent six figure sums over periods between a month and a half and six months.
The investigation also uncovered the case of a client who lost £209,000 before being contacted and a source of funds request being made. They estimated that the customer was earning £111,000 a year as a director of a company in London. However, not all directors earn that amount, and they didn’t verify the information received.
One of their customers even deposited over £1.3m into their account. Only after losing £600,000 was a check made. The information eventually given to them showed there was no way the customers could support their level of gambling.
One customer was contacted after losing £107,000 in six months. They replied that the money being used came from an allowance received from wealthy factory owning parents. That wasn’t verified by Genesis and bank statements received showed no sign of such an allowance but plenty of transactions with gambling companies.
Genesis Global Limited Fined Heavily
Now Genesis has been given this massive fine and additional licensing conditions have been imposed on them. This will include extensive audits on sites owned by the company such as Casinocruise.com and genesiscasino.com
Last week also saw two other online casinos be fined by the Gambling Commission. Rank Digital Gaming (Alderney) Limited operate sites such as bellacasino.com, grosvenorcasino.com and meccabingo.com. They were told to make a regulatory settlement of £700,557 for social responsibility failures.
Annexio (Jersey) Limited, who trade as lottogo.com were told to make a settlement of £612,000 for social responsibility and money laundering failures. The income from the regulatory settlements go to the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.
Helen Venn said after these decisions that the Commission expects “high standards” from operators to “ensure gambling in Britain is safe and crime free.”
