UKGC issues £672,000 fine to NSUS Limited

The United Kingdom Gambling Commission has issued a new penalty to a gambling operator in the country. This time, the targeted company is NSUS Limited, which will have to pay £672,829 or around $743,610 at current trading as a result of anti-money laundering and social responsibility shortcomings.

The company is best known under its GGPoker brand, which operates as ggpoker.co.uk, and is one of the most respected and best-known online card rooms in the world. The penalty is accompanied by an official warning.

According to the regulator, GGPoker may have overlooked adequate social responsibility in the cases of consumers who could have been at risk of experiencing gambling-related harm. GGPoker failed to interact with those customers, the regulator outlined in its description of the case.

Another issue had to do with the fact that, according to the regulator, GGPoker did not take steps to ensure that marketing and promotional materials did not reach self-excluded customers. In fact, 125 consumers have been targeted with such materials even though they had opted into a self-exclusion program.

In terms of AML failures, the regulator argued that there were insufficient risk assessments of the business when it comes to both money laundering and terrorist financing. Better procedures must be implemented as a result to ensure that all standards are met the UKGC said.

The UKGC also cited the specific breaches that were registered and to what part of the regulator’s code of conduct they belonged. NSUS Limited cooperated fully with the regulator during the investigation.

The regulator has been particularly active in 2022 as it seeks to ensure that the gambling industry is properly regulated and that transgressions are addressed swiftly and sternly. The regulator has so far issued its biggest fine to date to Entain Group which was fined a massive £17m worth roughly $20.5m at the time of the fine.

All of this comes in the context of the country trying to re-regulate its gambling industry and catch it up to date with the needs of modern and online gambling.

The White Paper that is supposed to chart the way to this re-regulation, though, has been delayed on multiple occasions and not least because of the tumultuous exit of Prime Minister Boris Johnson who had to step down. During this period, there have been calls to even scrap the UKGC as an inefficient regulator. The watchdog has vehemently opposed such claims.

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