UKGC Fines Caesars Entertainment With A Record £13 Million Over VIP Failings

Caesars Entertainment will have to pay a record fine of £13 million after breaching the number of social responsibility regulations, as found by United Kingdom Gambling Commission.

Some of the breaches included money laundering and customer interaction regulations in relation to VIP customers.

Executives Reg

Following the investigation…

…three of the operator’s senior managers also surrendered their personal management licenses. This led to new staff being appointed to a number of executive roles: managing director, group compliance director and money laundering reporting officer.

The Commission’s investigation focused on activities at CEUK’s 11 land-based casinos across the country between January 2016 and December 2018, setting out numerous examples of how the operator had failed to follow license conditions and codes of practice (LC).

Neil McArthur, UKGC’s executive director, said on the case:

“The failings in this case are extremely serious; a culture of putting customer safety at the heart of business decisions should be set from the very top of every company and Caesars failed to do this. We will now continue to investigate the individual licence holders involved with the decisions taken in this case.”

He added that all operators must know their customers and that they must interact with them and check what they can afford to gamble with – stepping in when they see signs of harm.

It’s a Fair Cop

Caesars Entertainment UK has accepted that they indeed made these failings…

…itting its AML controls did not address the issues presented by higher-risk customers. They were also found in breach of policies and procedures for customer interaction in regards to VIP customers.

There should be a specific provision for VIP players for identifying problem gambling with VIP players. One customer spent £3.5m and lost £1.6m at a London casino in just three months. Another customer, who was able to spend £800,000 and lose £795,000 during a 13-month period at a London casino, despite being flagged as a high risk individual.

CEUK was also found in breach of licence condition 15.3.1, which requires the holder to, when required, provide the Commission with information about their facilities. This may include the number of visitors, type of gambling taking place and the operator’s policies for problem gambling.

Source:

“Caesars to pay record GBP13m over systematic VIP failings in UK”, igamingbusiness.com, April 2, 2020.