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Genesis Global, which had its licence suspended for several months in 2020, has been fined £3.8m by the UK Gambling Commission, given a warning and ordered to undergo further extensive auditing.
The Malta-based operator was penalised for social responsibility and money laundering policy failures, including not making any “meaningful” contact or placing effective restrictions on a National Health Service nurse making £30,000 a year who spent £245,000 in three months, the regulator said in an announcement today (January 27).
The company’s licence had been suspended in July 2020 after the commission said it “suspected” the company had violated its licensing conditions, but it was later reinstated.
Genesis similarly did not carry out responsible gambling interactions with a customer who lost £197,000 over six months, the regulator said.
After that player closed her account, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family, she was still allowed to open another account the same day and deposit £200, the commission said.
In a money laundering policy failure, Genesis did not make source-of-funds requests until after a player lost £209,000, the regulator said.
The company then made questionable assumptions to estimate the player’s annual income and failed to verify information supplied by the player to support the losses, according to the commission.
Another player was allowed to deposit £1.3m and lose £600,000 before the company carried out adequate source-of-funds checks.
The customer’s documentation showed bank account deposits of only £23,000 — clearly not enough to support the level of losses, the regulator said.
Another player was allowed to lose £107,000 before sufficient source-of-funds checks were undertaken. The company, without verification, relied on the player’s assertion his parents owned factories overseas, the regulator said.
That player supplied bank statements which showed no sources of income, but did include transactions with other gambling operators, the commission said.
Genesis Global runs 14 websites including genesiscasino.com, casinoplanet.com and casinocruise.com.
The 2020 licence suspension was lifted after three months when the operator showed “significant compliance improvements”, but the investigation continued, leading to the £3.8m fine, the regulator said.
When its suspension was lifted that October, the company blamed its problems on “a difficult situation which arose during unusual economic circumstances for the whole world”.
