10Bet to pay £620K settlement following UKGC investigation

The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) has reached a decision in the case involving 10Bet, the trading name of Blue Star Planet Limited, which is licensed under a UKGC license, and which will now have to pay a £620,000 following an extensive investigation into its operations that discovered social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) failings.

The sum paid by the company will be forwarded towards socially responsible causes, the regulator announced in a public statement detailing the case and what has necessitated the enforcement action. This sum is part of a settlement with the UKGC, the watchdog informed.

The breaches are connected to the 10bet.co.ukdomain. The UKGC decided in favor of a settlement in lieu of a financial penalty owing to the company’s assistance in the matter and the swift remedial action Blue Star Planet Limited undertook to bring its operations in line with the licensing guidelines set out by the regulator and the government.

Detailing the case, the UKGC said that Blue Star Planet Limited had failings in the processes aimed at protecting vulnerable consumers and preventing money laundering (ML). UKGC officials conducted compliance assessment on four separate occasions, and specifically on June 22, 23, 24 and 25, 2021.

Furthermore, Blue Star Planet Limited failed to comply with a number of criteria outlined in the License Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) guidelines. These failings were detected between November 19 and June 2021, the commission explained, and pertained to failings in the compliance with the prevention of ML and terrorist funding.

The operator failed to comply with a license requirement that expected from the company to provide messaging on every screen that consumers accessed that the operator was a licensed entity that is regulated by the UKGC. Another breach had to do with paragraphs 1b, 1c, and 2 of the Social Responsibility Code Provision(SCRCP) 3.4.1. which expects licensees to interact with their customers and player bases in a manner that protects said customers from experiencing gambling-related harm and distress.

In the course of the investigation, the UKGC established that 10Bet had on occasion failed to provide its operations with sufficient compliance staff to monitor gambling alerts overnight, which allowed some consumers to exceed specific thresholds without eliciting a real-time reaction from the company. There were also no high-velocity risk alerts, the UKGC detailed in the case.

Regardless, UKGC maintained its original opinion, arguing that 10Bet had been cooperative throughout the course of the investigation. This is the latest in a number of similar moves that the UKGC has undertaken against TonyBet which was penalized with £442,000 and Vivaro Gaming, which had to pay £337,000.

The regulator’s biggest fine this year to date was issued against In Touch Games and its 11 websites. In Touch Games will have to pay a financial penalty of £6.1m ($7.36m).

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