mFortune Boss Ordered to Cough Up a Fortune

Official Warning and Hefty Fine!

There’s not getting away from the rules in online gaming. If an operator is found to be in breach of the terms and conditions set out to them by the Gambling Commission, they will come for them and they will take action. We’ve seen some pretty hefty fines handed out in the past – the largest to date was £11.6m ordered to be paid by Betway in 2020, £5.9m by Ladbrokes Coral, £2.2m by Paddy Power Betfair (Flutter Entertainment) and now mFortune find themselves part of that list.

Extensive auditing will soon get underway over at In Touch Games Limited HQ, after an assessment by the Gambling Commission revealed many social responsibility, money laundering and marketing failures. What exactly does that mean? Let’s start with social responsibility failings:

• Stating in its Responsible Gambling Team interaction guidance that a bonus may be offered if a customer provides identification.
• Not putting into effect its policies and procedures for customer interaction for seven customers where it had concerns that a customer’s activity may indicate problem gambling.
• Not using all relevant sources of information to ensure effective decision making, and to guide and deliver effective customer interactions for those seven customers. If the Licensee had followed its policy, it should have given more consideration to placing mandatory limits on customer accounts.

What Happens Next?

In Touch Games Limited who run many popular mobile bingo brands: Cashmo, mFortune (bingo and casino), Mr Spin, Pocket Win, Slot Factory, Casino 2020, Dr Slot and Bonus Boss, now faces having to pay a hefty fine of £3.4m for its shortcomings. Having a risk assessment which did not take into account the risk of allowing customers to use a payment provider which also acts as an exchange for crypto currencies, neglecting to conduct appropriate levels of enhanced customer due diligence and failing to critically review source of funds (SOF) information once it was requested was the reasoning for its anti-money laundering failings.

Minimum and maximum deposit limits of an offer were not stated in SMS text and the SMS text also failed to specify a time limit for the bonus offer. All of these failings have led to a new licence condition – In Touch Games must now pay for an independent firm of auditors to go through their network of sites with a fine toothcomb, to ensure compliance with the license conditions and codes of practice.

Richard Watson, Commission Executive Director, said: “Through our challenging compliance and enforcement activity we will continue our work to raise standards in the industry and continue to hold failing operators to account.”

Source: “Regulatory Action Against In Touch Games”. Gambling Commission. March 17, 2021.