Kindred Group shells out £1.6 million for customer using stolen funds

The Kindred Group is shelling out £1.6 million ($2 million USD) per the orders of the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) for its role in accepting stolen funds from a problem gambler. It’s yet another sign that the UKGC, and other UK regulatory agencies, are dead set on enforcing compliance laws to the letter and have no qualms about handing out huge fines in the process.
According to a report on GamblingInsider.com, the problematic funds were deposited at Unibet, which is run by Platinum Gaming Ltd., which is a subsidiary of the Kindred Group.
The pilfered cash found its way into the Kindred Group’s accounts via an unnamed player who deposited huge amounts of cash and lost it nearly as fast. This kind of behavior is exactly what UK compliance laws are meant to catch, but no one on watch saw a problem. Even worse, the player was immediately given VIP status and all the perks that come with that title.
Regulators at the UKGC acknowledged that employees at the operator did move to shut down the player’s account, but shouldn’t have let it go as far as it did. That action, however, paved the way for the Kindred Group to merely return the cash and pay off the UKGC, but not technically receive a fine and continue operating under their current license.
A spokesperson for the Kindred Group accepted responsibility for the incident saying, “As a group, we monitor, act on and report all suspicious behaviour we detect, which was done in this specific case. However, in this specific case we did not act quickly enough.”