Skill On Net Ltd settles with the UKGC

The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) and Skill On Net Limited have reached a settlement under which the latter will pay £305,150, which will be forwarded to socially responsible causes. The UKGC provided a full account of the events that led to the settlement action.

Skill On Net Limited presently operates 50 websites. The company was found in breach of several paragraphs of the License Conditions and Codes of Practice (LLCP). The regulator went into detail offering more information about each of the breaches. The first case involved a lack of compliance with the prevention of Money Laundering (MML) and Terrorist Financing (TF) as outlined by the regulator under license condition 12.1.1.

Other breaches involved license condition 12.1.2 which states that operators based in foreign jurisdictions need to comply with the outlined ML, TF and Transfer of Funds Regulations set out in 2017.

The Social Responsibility Code Provision (SRCP) 3.4.1 expects operators to intervene and contact consumers in cases where they suspect that customers are experiencing harm related to gambling. Another breach was established in relation to a failure to adhere to Ordinary Code Provision (OCP) 2.1.1 which concerns overall Anti-Money Laundering guidance.

The regulator specified the individual breaches committed by the party. In some cases, consumers were able to deposit and lose close to £4,000, or twice the minimum amount set out by Skill On Net Limited of £2,000 to intervene and verify payment methods. The licensee assumed that customers were just re-using winnings and not depositing, the regulator said.

In terms of not running sufficient background checks, the company failed to factor in a person’s wealth or salary to help determine whether someone is spending above their means. Not least, the commission said that Skill On Net Limited was lacking when trying to identify and address risks that directly pertained to TF and ML measures.

Social responsibility failings were also mentioned as players were not vetted even after indicators of gambling harm. Under the SRCP, a licensee needs to interact with customers in order to ensure and help minimize the risk of gambling harm.

Some technical issues were also registered and noted by the regulator, which prevented customers from accessing safer gambling tools and activating those. Another case saw a player deposit and lost £3,000 in a single month which was more than the person’s salary based on the evidence collected by the operator.

Concluding the review, the UKGC has reached a settlement with Skill On Net Limited, citing the operator’s own admission of fault and the remedial actions that the licensee has taken in order to ensure that its policies are brought up to standard.

The licensee agreed for the case to be shared publicly and is now going to conduct an independent audit to ensure that its safer gambling and AML policies are up to snuff. The UKGC has been going after many licensee holders of late, with the regulator hitting William Hill and TGP Europe with fines over the past months.

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