Admiral Casino’s operator in the United Kingdom, Greentube Alderney Limited, is facing a tough regulatory sanction by the country’s gambling regulator amid regulatory failures.
Greentube Alderney Breaches AML, Social Responsibility Rules
On Thursday, the UK gambling regulator, the Gambling Commission, announced that Admiral Casino’s operator will pay £1 million ($1.23 million) after an investigation uncovered anti-money laundering (AML) failures and social responsibility breaches. The hefty fine for Greentube Alderney will benefit socially responsible causes and comes as a part of a settlement between the gambling watchdog and the operator that runs admiralcasino.co.uk.
The latest regulatory sanction isn’t the first one Greentube Alderney faces in the country. Back in 2021, the operator received a financial penalty of £685,000 ($911,440) over license conditions breaches. Similar to the most recent fine, Greentube Alderney was found to have breached rules regarding the prevention of money laundering, as well as social responsibility regulations between December 2019 and November 2020.
John Pierce, the Commission’s director of enforcement, revealed that the latest investigation was initiated as a “follow-up compliance assessment designed to ensure the operator had continued to apply lessons learned from previous regulatory action.” He explained that while the Commission acknowledged the operator’s dedication to addressing key issues and “significant general improvements,” the latest probe uncovered additional regulatory failures.
Pierce said that in light of the uncovered failures, Greentube Alderney had to swiftly implement changes to its operations, addressing all deficiencies. He spoke about the importance of adhering to the established gambling regulations that keep the sector free from crime and provide safe entertainment for consumers.
Still, Pierce added: “Any failure to uphold anti-money laundering standards is unacceptable, and today’s action reflects the gravity of the breaches identified.” In conclusion, the Commission’s director of enforcement explained that the regulator will continue to monitor the sector, addressing potential breaches of the “required regulatory standards.”
The Gambling Regulator Shares Details Regarding the Breaches
Describing the AML failures, the Gambling Commission said that the operator did not always scrutinize “available information upon receipt, or in a timely manner, leading to an avoidable delay in the identification and potential escalation of money laundering and/or terrorist financing risks.”
Moreover, per the Commission, Greentube Alderney failed to enforce its own policy related to customers with “risky occupations,” pointing as an example a financial manager which could have taken funds without authorization and laundered them. This vital information wasn’t acknowledged in the particular customer’s risk profile therefore the operator failed to address this increased risk.
On the other hand, the Commission said that Greentube Alderney failed in “fully implementing its own policy aimed at ensuring customer limits are based on regular, sustainable income – as opposed to one-off or irregular forms of income.” Further social responsibility failures included failure to implement processes required to determine if customers’ documents were not fraudulent and “not fully implementing its controls to identify indicators of vulnerability or potential harm in a timely manner.”