Mr Green to pay £3m after failure to protect players from harm and money laundering

The last two years has seen a huge shift in the gambling industry with much tighter restrictions and measures put in place to protect players from gambling related harm. It has just been revealed that the popular gaming operator, Mr Green, has been forced to pay £3million to the ‘National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harm’, after failures to prevent harm and money laundering were discovered.

Mr Green failures

Gambling operators have a duty of care to ensure money used for gambling comes from ethical and legal sources. Players depositing large amounts have to prove their source of funds.

It was discovered the Mr Green wrongly accepted a photograph of a laptop screen allegedly of a crypto trading account with currency in US dollars, as adequate proof of source of funds, and also wrongly accepted the source of funds from a customer who deposited over £1million and claimed the money was from a £176,000 insurance claim over ten years ago.

They also failed in their social responsibility when a player won £50,000 but then subsequently gambled it all again along with tens of thousands of addition pounds. In fact, out of Mr Greens top 120 players, 113 had to have their accounts closed due to failing their AML checks.

£3million settlement

Mr Green is the ninth gambling operator to be investigated and have action taken against them and the £3m that Mr Green have to pay is instead of an official fine. The money will go twards the prevention of gambling related harm and money laundering.

The UK Gambling Commission said that systematic failures have been discovered in reference to AML controls and social responsibility. UKGC executive Richard Watson said: “Consumers in Britain have the right to know that there are checks and balances in place which will help keep them safe and ensure gambling is crime-free – and we will continue to crack down on operators who fail in this area.”