Third Penalty For In Touch Games In 4 Years

Operator, In Touch Games, who own 11 popular mobile bingo and casino websites, has recently received a massive £6.1m fine by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) for what it describes as social responsibility and money laundering failings.

In Touch Games – which operates 11 websites including Bonus Boss, Cashmo, Dr Slot, Jammy Money, Slot Factory, mFortune, Casino2020, Mr Spin and PocketWin, failed a compliance assessment in March 2022, first came two instances of social responsibility failings:

• Not contacting a flagged customer until seven weeks had passed from when they first started displaying erratic play patterns and extended periods of play.
• Accepting a customer’s word that they earned £6,000 a month without verifying this information via the requesting of KYC/SOF documents, after the customer account was flagged for wagering behaviours and for gambling during unsociable hours.

What does flagged mean?

Accounts displaying unusual activity will be flagged for contact - or should be. If a customer starts to spend more money than usual, play at odd hours and never making a withdrawal, this is when customer support should kick in. Gambling responsibly and setting deposit limits will ensure you not only remain in control of your gambling, but safe too.

Four More Reasons Why They Had A Penalty

There were a total of 4 anti-money laundering failings, which included:

• Not adequately taking account of the risk of a customer being a beneficiary of a life insurance policy; having links to high-risk jurisdictions; or being a politically exposed person (“PEP”), family member of a PEP or known close associates of a PEP, within its money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment.
• Not having policies, procedures and controls in place to address the risk factors mentioned above
• Not sufficiently considering the Commission’s money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment or the Commission’s guidance
• Not ensuring its policies, procedures and controls were implemented effectively, for example not following its own policy to request source of funds information from customers who had deposited and lost £10,000 in a 12-month period.

Kay Roberts, Executive Director of Operations, said: “Considering this operator’s history of failings we expected to see significant improvement when we carried out our planned compliance assessment. Disappointingly, although many improvements had been made, there was still more to do. This £6.1m fine shows that we will take escalating enforcement action where failures are repeated and all licensees should be acutely aware of this.”

Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time In Touch Games have received a fine from the Gambling Commission. Nor the second. In 2019, the operators paid a £2.2m settlement for regulatory failings and in 2021, they also received a £3.4m fine and a warning for further failures.

Source: “£6.1m Fine For Online Operator In Touch Games”. Gambling Commission. January 25, 2023.