Stride Gaming has described the fine of £7.1m imposed on its subsidiary Daub Alderney by the UK Gambling Commission as “excessive and disproportionate,” but will not be appealing the penalty.
An investigation by the Gambling Commission review panel found that the company had failed to follow rules aimed at preventing money laundering and protecting vulnerable customers.
Failures were found in the following areas: monitoring of players; the application of customer due diligence measures; keeping full records of customer transactions; establishing and maintaining appropriate AML measures; and staff training in recognising transactions that may relate to money laundering or terrorist financing.
The UKGC also found that the company’s AML policy was not effective in establishing the source of funds and that the social responsibility procedure was not sufficient.
Stride Gaming had in September 2018 updated the market that it expected to face a £4m penalty from the UKGC.
Nigel Payne, non-executive chairman of Stride, said: "Stride Gaming considers that robust anti-money laundering and social responsibility controls are extremely important. It acknowledges and entirely supports the more robust steps taken by the UKGC in recent years to drive improvements across the industry.
"We remain disappointed with the particular circumstances of this case and with certain factual inaccuracies which were presented by UKGC to the regulatory panel in the course of the proceedings, which we believe coloured the size of the fine that has been imposed.
"We are of the view that both the industry and its regulator must be as one in its combined attempt to better regulate the industry and accordingly, we will be seeking to engage with the UKGC to improve the robustness of the process that we have just been through."
