Casumo Gets a £6 Million Fine From UKGC for Regulatory Failures

Casumo Casino, one of the most popular online gaming websites in the UK has been slapped with a £6 million ($8.28 million) fine by the UK Gambling Commission for not measuring up to social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements. On top of the hefty fine, Casumo, the operator of the casumo.com website also received an official warning from the regulator after it was found guilty of the regulatory failures. 

The Malta-based online casino and sports betting platform received the penalty after an audit was conducted on them in the four months between October 2019 and January 2020. Incidentally, Casumo’s assessment by the UK gaming watchdog was part of a standard audit procedure to inspect the changes that the operator had implemented after a rapid growth stint. Instead, UKGC discovered that Casumo hadn’t done enough to implement a range of mandatory customer interaction systems, procedures, and policies to adequately assist patrons with signs of compulsive gambling habits.

Richard Watson, the Executive Director of the UK Gambling Commission explained what led to the findings and issued a stern cautionary message to future culprits in a statement as follows:

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“This case was brought about through planned compliance activity and every operator out there should be aware that we will continue to take firm action against those who fail to raise standards.”

The Offences that Led to Casumo’s Multi-Million Pound Penalty

Casumo’s failure to abide by UKGC regulations for social responsibility that enable early detection of problem gambling signs led to grave losses by its customers. The responsible gambling interaction failures led to the following losses for players as highlighted by the regulator:

• A £59,000 loss for a customer in just 90 minutes
• Another player losing £89,000 within five hours
• £65,000 worth of losses was racked up by another gamer in a month
• A patron losing a total of £76,000 in a seven-month period
• One more Casumo player suffered a combined loss of £1.1 million over three years

Per the UK Gambling Commission codes of conduct for operators, Casumo’s responsible gambling agents should have interacted with the above customers to assess whether they could afford such losses within the said timelines. 

For AML shortcomings, on the other hand, the Casumo.com operator was found guilty of the following offences:

• Allowing players to load huge deposits without conducting satisfactory AML checks on them
• Insufficient SOF (Source of Funds) checks for payslips and invoices submitted by customers
• Improper assessment of bank statement submitted by players
• Inadequate authentication checks for documentation forwarded by patrons
• The operator accepted gambling winnings from other gambling operators as SOF and failed to further investigate such cases
• Failure to properly assess customers’ gambling expenditure based on their wealth, and income, among other risk factors

The penalty and the warning aside, Casumo has also received new license conditions. Part of the conditions require the operator to seek the services of an independent audit firm at its own expense to assess all its transactions starting from 1st July 2020 to date. This assessment is meant to certify that Casumo has effectively implemented new policies, controls, and procedures and that the operator is fully compliant with the UK Gambling Commission’s Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice.

Casumo Speaks Out After Receiving the Huge Fine

In light of the hefty penalty issued by the UKGC, Shelly Suter-Hadad, the recently appointed Casumo Chief Executive came forward to accept responsibility and reiterated her company’s resolve to abide by industry regulations in the following briefing:

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“Since joining Casumo last year, my focus has been on putting in place a new senior leadership team and Personal Management Licence holders with extremely strong industry experience, and the knowledge and expertise to ensure we are a compliance-led business.

In addition, recognising that key processes fell short in the past, I took immediate action to implement fundamental operational changes, so that Casumo is now a gaming group with compliance and responsible gambling at the heart of its business and culture. These efforts, together with our full collaboration, have been formally recognised multiple times by the Commission.”

This is the second seven-figure fine that the gaming company has received from the UK gaming ombudsman in a span of less than three years. Back in November 2018, Casumo was smacked with a £5.85 million fine for similar shortcomings in social responsibility and AML regulations.

With this fine, Casumo is the second gaming company this month, and in 2021 as well, to receive a fine for systematic failings. The only other gaming company that has been fined by the UKGC is In Touch Games Limited, the operator of websites like drslot.co.uk, cashmo.co.uk, and mrspin.co.uk. In Touch Games, was hit with a £3.4 million fine and an official warning for social responsibility and AML failures.