UKGC fines GGPoker £672,829

GGPoker is probably the biggest online poker website on the internet. They operate since August 2017 and since July 2019 in the UK. But now the UK Gambling Commission has fined GGPoker for numerous failings. NSUS Limited, which is the head of GGPoker, has received a £672,829 fine. The fine is for breaking the anti-money laundering rules and lacking of social responsibilities.

GGPoker is the biggest online poker platform on the internet. With partners like the World Series of Poker, they’re the biggest in the world. They also have world-famous ambassadors like Daniel Negreanu, ElkY and Jason Koon.

There were two big issues with GGPoker in the UK. Breaching these rules cost them a whooping £672,829. The rules that GGPoker broke were:

• Issues with anti-money laundering rules
• Sending marketing emails to 125 self-excluded players

Besides the financial penalty, GGPoker also received an official warning. This means that the website of GGPoker will remain under investigation.

Marketing Mails

Players can protect themselves from getting a gambling addiction. They do that by self-exclusion from the online casino. You can’t make any deposit or withdrawal from the casino. Another thing is that you can’t receive any marketing and promotion mails. This will protect you from getting attracted to casino again.

GGPoker did send promotional and marketing mails to players who self-excluded themselves from online gambling. They put the players in danger, because they self-excluded for a reason. So that’s a lack of Social Responsibilities.

Breaking Anti-Money Laundering Rules

The second failing has to do with the anti-money laundering rules. GGPoker dit not took the right measures to carry out the risk of money laundering. And that’s not all. They don’t have the right systems to combat Money laundering and Terrorist Financing. So it’s possible that the money is used for financing terrorists.

They didn’t have any controls or procedures that could possibly help against any type of terrorist financing or money laundering.

Other Fines from the UKGC

This fine for GGPoker is not the only fine the UKGC gave in the last couple of month. Only in September there were two more fines for big online casino:

Petfre Limited, the head of Betfred, received a £2.8m fine for breaking the anti-money laundering rules and lacking of social responsibilities (same as GGPoker).

Betway received a £400,000 fine for promoting their online casino on websites for children.