Rank Group to pay GBP 5m to settle UKGC case over AML and safer gambling failures at Grosvenor casinos

Rank Group has agreed to pay GBP 5 million ($6.6 million) to settle a regulatory case brought by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). The regulator announced the settlement on October 7, saying it relates to failings at the group's land-based casino businesses.

The settlement covers Grosvenor Casinos Limited, Grosvenor Casinos (GC) Limited and Gaming Group Limited. Together, these divisions operate 51 casinos across the UK. The money will go to the Government's Consolidated Fund.

On anti-money laundering, the UKGC found that Rank had not updated its policies to reflect the 2020 changes to the Money Laundering Regulations. Its policies, procedures and controls also allowed inconsistent decisions to be made on customers with elevated money laundering risk. Some policies were unclear, which led to inappropriate risk levels being assigned to high-risk customers and to high-risk sources of funds being used without sufficient oversight. The regulator also concluded that enhanced customer due diligence was not always carried out, even where the company's own policies required it.

The social responsibility findings included three examples. One customer lost GBP 50,000 over a short period after insufficient safer gambling interactions. Another customer, with no record of any safer gambling interaction, won about GBP 260,000 and then lost GBP 250,000 within 12 days. In the third case, the company did not carry out a safer gambling interaction with a previously self-excluded customer, who lost GBP 25,000 soon after the exclusion period ended.

Sue Young, the UKGC's director of operations, said the settlement shows that AML and social responsibility risks persist across the gambling industry. She noted that larger enforcement cases are often linked to online gambling, but that this announcement shows the same risks are equally present in the land-based sector. Young encouraged land-based operators to learn from the case and work harder to avoid similar and costly mistakes.