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Mr Green Smacked with $3.62m Fine by Spelinspektionen
By Jeff Osienya Aug 26, 2021 IndustryWilliam Hill’s subsidiary Mr Green has been hit with a $3.62 million fine by Spelinspektionen, the gambling oversight body in Sweden. Mr Green was found to have breached AML and responsible gambling regulations.Spelinspektionen, the Swedish gambling ombudsman, has slapped Mr Green with a hefty SEK31.5 million ($3.62 million/€3 million) in penalties for responsible gambling and anti-money laundering (AML) failures. Mr Green Limited is a William Hill-owned operator based in Malta and is known for offering some of the finest online casino, sports betting, live casino, keno, and bingo products in the United Kingdom and across Europe.
Two Fines for Two Counts of Gambling Offenses
Sweden’s gaming watchdog announced the huge penalty for two separate offenses on Wednesday. In Spelinspektionen’s assessment, Mr Green received a SEK1.5 million ($172,255/€140,000) fine after failing to abide by the Money Laundering Act as outlined in the recently reformed Sweden Gambling Act 2018.
The Malta-based operator was found guilty of not upholding its customer reporting responsibilities as the Swedish gambling law required. Per the Money Laundering Act in Sweden’s gambling regulations, offenders are liable for a penalty of up to €1 million ($1.17 million). It’s worth noting that Sweden’s legislation allows for an even bigger fine based on the turnover of the gaming operator under investigation.
Further, Mr Green was also slapped with a heftier penalty worth SEK30 million ($3.45 million/ €2.9 million) after falling short of customer care responsibilities as required by law. According to the Swedish gambling inspectorate, Mr Green did not undertake “sufficient measures to help customers reduce their gambling spend.” The Swedish Tax Authority set this second fine after assessing the earnings reported by Mr Green between 2019 and 2020.
Mr Green Transgressions Occurred Between Jan 2019 and June 2020
The Swedish gambling ombudsman published the casework on Wednesday, disclosing that the penalties were issued following investigations conducted on 15 Mr Green customers. The operator shortcomings took place between January 2019 and June 2020.
Per the report, the customers in question showed clear signs of problem gambling behavior and AML criminal intent – yet Mr Green did not do enough to ensure that it abided by gambling regulations. All the interactions of the 15 customers were forwarded to Spelinspektionen via JIRA factsheets maintained by the William Hill subsidiary as a requirement of its online gambling license for Swedish operations.
In one instance, Mr Green processed millions of SEK deposits for an individual player who couldn’t submit any adequate source of fund (SOF) documentation. This was a clear violation of Sweden’s Money Laundering Act under the gambling regulations. Still, on AML failures, the Swedish gambling watchdog also cited a case where a Mr Green player was allowed to keep gambling even after spending “six times his reported salary.”
At the same time, while carrying out background checks, Sweden’s gambling inspectorate discovered that Mr Green did not perform due diligence on customers who had evidently provided false financial records. Moreover, the operator also accepted customers who had previously been convicted of tax and money laundering-related criminal offenses.
For these cases, Spelinspektionen disclosed that Mr Green’s only effort to intervene was requiring that the customers set individual depositing limits on the gambling platform. All this information was unveiled in the customer interaction records submitted to the gambling regulator by Mr Green.
William Hill Expresses Disappointment for Mr Green’s Shortcomings
In light of the casework published by Sweden’s gambling watchdog, Mr Green responded by stating that all the accounts of the scrutinized players had been opened earlier when its operations were under the regulation of the Malta Gaming Authority. This was before the start of 2019 when Sweden launched its re-regulated its online gambling market.
Mr Green acknowledged the failings and revealed that it was already revamping its internal customer care reporting system to bring it up to speed with Spelinspektionen standards. Additionally, the Malta-based operator indicated that most of the transactions had been facilitated by Swedish banks who co-shared the responsibility to monitor any arising AML threats.
Following the publication of Spelinspektionen’s findings, Patrick Jonker, the Managing Director of William Hill International, and Mr Green voiced his disappointment in a media briefing saying:
Quote“Player protection has always been a priority for Mr Green. We are disappointed by the findings as we always seek to operate in full compliance with regulations. The gaps noted by the Swedish authority were in relation to Mr Green’s procedures required under the duty of care and the handling times relating to AML. Since this was identified, Mr Green has invested significant time and resources addressing the issues raised in the investigation, which Spelinspektionen has acknowledged in their findings.”
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