Gala Interactive has been hit with a £2.3m penalty package for violating UK customer protections after two of its VIP customers bet £1.3m of stolen money.
The investigation by the UK Gambling Commission found that the company violated UK gambling protections as the players showed signs of problem gambling. One player lost £837,545 in a 14-month period, during which time he placed 842,020 bets, depositing almost £49,000 on one day alone. The second customer placed 554,954 bets in 11 months, losing £432,765 in total, and one day alone deposited about £20,000, according to SBC News.
Both of the customers were later convicted of crimes and jailed for theft and using or possessing criminal property, respectively.
The fine package includes a £1m payment to fund research into problem gambling, a payment of £1.3m to the victims of both customers and a commitment from the company to the commission to “ensure that improvements to social responsibility procedures are implemented promptly to minimize the risk of repetition of the failings identified during this investigation. This will be monitored as part of our planned compliance activity with this operator”.
Gala also has to pay an additional £200,000 to help fund research into problem gambling.
“Our investigation found, and Gala Interactive accept, that they failed to put into effect written policies and procedures for customer interaction to deal with situations where they have concerns that a VIP customer’s behavior may indicate problem gambling,” the commission’s decision said. “Gala Interactive did not effectively interact with customers who were displaying problem gambling behavior and did not have written policies in place that could have mitigated harm caused by the actions of two ‘VIP’ customers.
“It also failed to ensure that proper records were kept of responsible gambling interactions,” the decision said. “An aggravating factor in this case was that Gala Interactive failed to engage effectively with Customer A and Customer B at a time when we were being assured that lessons had been learnt from a previous case.”
The commission said a previous case against the company involving problem gambling behavior resulted in the company saying that customers of concern would be identified sooner and effectively handled, by Gala. Those assurances were issued as the two gamblers in this case were gambling at Gala’s sites.
“It is the responsibility of all operators—particularly key decision makers in those companies—to ensure they are protecting their customers and step in when there is behavior that might indicate problem gambling,” said Sarah Harrison, Chief Executive at the Commission in a press release. “This did not happen in this case and the £2.3m penalty package should serve as a warning to other operators.”
