Casumo To Face Fine of £6 Million

Casumo is a popular online casino that uses gamification to enhance the player experi-ence. Since launching in 2012, the casino has continued to impress players thanks to the way the gaming experience is designed. Become a member and you’ll get to take part in the casino’s adventure-style, where you collect points by playing games and earn trophies and prizes along the way.

What may come as a surprise to many players is that this popular and well rated online casino has recently been fined. The UK Gambling Commission, the watchdog that regu-lates the UK’s gambling industry, has recently announced it’s handing the casino operators a hefty £6 million fine.

Why Casumo Is Getting Fined

The UK Gambling Commission is fining the operator of Casumo, Casumo Services Lim-ited, for failing to comply with social responsibility and anti-money laundering rules. The operator will also be receiving an official warning from the watchdog.

Casumo has a full gambling licence from the UK Gambling Commission. Any online casino with a licence has to follow the commission’s rules. These rules are designed to protect players and ensure that the gambling services are reliable, safe and fair for everyone. One of the UKGC’s ongoing aims is to make gambling an enjoyable, problem-free activity. So long as there are problems associated with it – debt, addiction, underage gambling, anxiety, to name a few – the UKGC will always have work to do.

The UKGC and other regulatory authorities hand out fines to operators that break their rules. These fines exist to encourage the operator to stick to the rules and remind other operators that punishments can come to those who don’t comply. Suppose an operator repeatedly gets into trouble with a licenced provider. In that case, that provider has the right to revoke the licence, meaning the operator can no longer legally offer its gambling services in certain places.

Social Responsibility Failings

According to the UK Gambling Commission, Casumo didn’t take into account official guid-ance on customer interaction. The operator:

• Didn’t carry out a responsible gambling interaction on a player who lost £59,000 in an hour and a half.
• Failed to do the same for a player who lost £89,000 over a period of five hours.

As well as the above, Casumo failed to enact policies for customers whose gambling activ-ity suggested he or she may have a gambling problem. Because of this:

• One player lost £65,000 in a single month without a responsible gambling interac-tion from the operator.
• Another player lost £76,000 over a period of seven months without any responsible gambling interaction.
• A third player didn’t get any sort of responsible gambling interaction from the oper-ator, despite losing £1.1 million across a three-year period.

In short, the casino failed to prevent players from losing excessive amounts of money when it could have stepped in earlier and helped players control their gambling better.

Anti-Money Laundering Failings

Some of the anti-money laundering failings found by the UK Gambling Commission in-clude:

• Players were able to deposit fairly large amounts of money into their accounts without adequate anti-money laundering checks being made.
• Not all bank statements were properly checked.
• Documentation provided to prove authenticity wasn’t properly checked.
• It was not determined how much players should be allowed to spend.
• The operator failed to make sure its policies were being correctly implemented and failed to update and revise its policies.
• Checks on sources of funds were insufficient.
• Winnings from other online casinos were accepted as sources of funds without suf-ficient checks being carried out on them.

Going Forward

Casumo will be working hard to ensure that the failings noted by the UK Gambling Com-mission don’t happen again. The operator will no doubt be introducing more rigorous checks and policies so that it can stick to the UKGC’s rules better and keep its licence.

Richard Watson, the UKGC’s Commission Executive Director, has said ‘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.’

In other words, the UKGC will fine any operator, no matter how popular or successful, if it fails to meet the watchdog’s standards. Licences have been revoked before and even the biggest names aren’t exempt.

What does this mean for players? If you’re a member of Casumo, you may well notice updated policies and things like that. One advantage from this scenario is that the casino’s players should be better protected in the future and have better checks carried out on them and their money.

The fining of Casumo goes to show that operators are still failing to comply with the UKGC’s licensing conditions. It may well be just a matter of time before the watchdog fines the next big-name company for failing to follow the rules.