EU Lotto, operator of Lottoland, fined £760,000 by UK Gambling Commission

The UK’s Gambling Commission has fined EU Lotto, operator of Lottoland, a total of £760,000 (€886,749) for failures it noted on social responsibility and anti-money laundering systems.

It noted that the shortcomings took place between October 2019 and November 2020, with a formal letter having been sent to the operator as a warning.

For the social responsibility failings, the Gambling Commission noted failures to flag behaviour of customers frequently changing deposit limits, a lack of adequate financial and affordability assessments for players, and shortcomings in terms of interaction with at-risk customers.

As for anti-money laundering systems, the regulator noted inadequate analysis of customer bank statements to verify KYC details, a failure to restrict player accounts after sending out source of funds requests and permitting customers to register third-party debit cards to their accounts.

In addition, EU Lotto was accused of relying on to heavily of “ineffective” threshold triggers for financial risk.

Speaking of the fine, UK Gambling Commission executive Helen Venn commented:

“This case, like other recent enforcement action, was the result of planned compliance activity. All operators should be very aware that we will not hesitate to take firm action against those who fail to meet the high standards we expect for consumers in Britain.”

Nigel Birrell, Lottoland CEO, said the company “is fully committed to ensuring the highest standards of compliance, including its anti-money laundering and social responsibility obligations in all of the jurisdictions in which it operates.

“The Gambling Commission fine was related to legacy issues around some of our compliance controls which have now been addressed. Lottoland  has extensive compliance measures in place and we are confident that our current policies and processes meet all relevant standards. 

“Remedial action taken included significantly increased investment in our compliance function, more than doubling headcount, alongside a host of other initiatives including bringing in third-party support, enhancing training and a review of key policies. In addition, we recently committed to building our individual processes into an automated system to improve the system even further.”