Greentube settles with UKGC for £1m following breaches

Greentube Alderney, a subsidiary of NOVOMATIC, and trading under Admiral Casino in the United Kingdom has reached a settlement with the country’s gambling regulator.

The UK Gambling Commission and Greentube have agreed to settle for £1m, which the casino will pay to various social responsibility causes after a probe into the brand’s operations showed it to be deficient in key areas of its licensure agreement, and specifically anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT), as well as social responsibility shortcomings.

Greentube Alderney to pay money from settlement to social causes

This is the latest enforcement action Greentube has faced in the United Kingdom, not since 2021 when the company was ordered to pay £685,000 over money laundering and social responsibility failures.

The decision was published on the UK Gambling Commission’s home page on Thursday, January 9, outlining the investigation, alleged breaches, and the settlement ruling. The breaches concern the period between September 2022 and June 2023.

The regulator went into detail to detail each of the offenses it had registered upon careful investigation of admiralcasino.co.uk and its operator. In terms of social responsibility, the brand is said to have failed to enforce a policy that guarantees that customer limits are based on regular and sustainable income.

The casino also failed to follow through with its own internal policies on ensuring that customer documents were genuine, and the watchdog also named deficiencies in the process of detecting potential harm in a timely manner.

In terms of AML failures, the regulator outlined several key points. Admiral Casino was found deficient in executing a timely review of the available information it received, leading to "an avoidable delay in the identification and potential escalation of money laundering and/or terrorist financing risks."

One particular case concerns the complex and unusual transactions of large amounts of money, including the amount of more than £100,000.

Admiral Casino has also not always labeled the appropriate "high-risk" professions, referring to people who have access to other people’s funds, and could use the casino to launder money, for example. The specific case concerned one finance manager.

Lack of meticulous implication of policies costs Greentube again

The UK Gambling Commission has gone to great pains to enumerate all the suspected deficiencies and describe them in detail. UKGC Director of Enforcement John Pierce commented on the most recent settlement reached with the company.

"While we noted that the business had made significant general improvements, further regulatory breaches were still identified. The operator was subsequently required to swiftly put in place an effective action plan designed to remedy all of the identified failings," Pierce explained.

Overall, all operators need to ensure that their business operations do not breach the rules that are in place to safeguard consumers from harm and keep the industry clean, he added. "We will continue to monitor this operator to ensure they consistently meet the required regulatory standards," Pierce concluded.

The ruling against Admiral Casino comes shortly after Novomatic announced that Tipico had bought a 100% stake in Admiral Austria for an undisclosed amount.

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