Regulators at the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) are hitting White Hat Games with a £1.3 million fine ($1.7 million USD) for failure to comply with anti-money laundering and compliance regulations. It was an unfortunate affair but company officials cooperated with gambling regulators throughout and worked closely with them on the settlement.
At the heart of the matter were seven separate customer accounts that were nestled among four individual White Hat Gaming sites including: Grandivy.com, 21Casino.com, Hellocasino.com and Dreamvegas.com. Officials at the UKGC were made aware of the anomalies in these individual accounts over the course of a standard audit back in March, 2019.
On the whole, the violations weren’t particularly egregious and in several instances turned out to be false alarms. For example, in one case a customer lost £85,500 ($116,000 USD) in under 90 minutes. Though White Hat officials stepped in to see if they were dealing with a problem gambler who couldn’t afford the losses, they found that wasn’t at all. This particular gambler was affluent enough to absorb the losses. But White Hat Games didn’t provide this assistance in exact accordance with existing UK gambling compliance laws and that was a problem.
In an outline posted on the UK Gambling Commission website, it’s clear that White Hat Games made a few, inadvertent mistakes and is paying a price for their errors.
Not that it’s any consolation, but with the fine White Hat Games earned a not-particularly-sought-after accolade; they’re the first UK licensed gambling operator to receive a fine from the UKGC in 2021.