Gambling Commission fines Unibet bingo brand £10 million over ‘serious’ AML failures

Summary

The Gambling Commission has fined Platinum Gaming — operator of the Unibet bingo brand UK.bingo.com — £10 million for serious anti‑money laundering (AML) and social responsibility failings. The regulator also issued a formal warning and ordered an independent third‑party audit. The enforcement action covers failures between January 2023 and May 2024 and details multiple cases where customers lost large sums without timely or adequate operator intervention.

Key Points

Platinum Gaming was fined £10 million and given a formal warning by the Gambling Commission.
The regulator found systemic failures in customer interaction: players lost thousands rapidly with little or no operator contact.
Examples include customers losing £5,000 within 24 hours of registration and another losing over £31,000 in nine months without intervention.
AML shortcomings allowed previously blocked accounts to open new accounts; risk assessments did not sufficiently consider historical blocked accounts or high‑risk indicators.
Platinum breached licence conditions on anti‑money laundering (licence condition 12.1.1 and 12.1.2) and Social Responsibility Code Provision 3.4.3.
This is Platinum’s second major penalty in recent years; it was fined £2.9m in March 2023 for similar failings.
The operator must commission an independent audit and provide regular updates to the Commission; further regulatory action remains possible.

Context and Relevance

This case underlines increasing regulatory scrutiny of operator compliance in the UK gambling market. The Commission is focusing on both AML procedures and safer gambling obligations, expecting firms to detect rapid losses, high‑velocity gambling and to prevent previously blocked or risky customers from re‑entering the platform. For operators, payments teams and compliance officers, the ruling signals tougher enforcement and the need for robust, documented processes and board‑level oversight.

Why should I read this?

Because if you work in compliance, payments, ops or run a gambling brand, this is a wake‑up call — regulators are no longer tolerating patchy AML checks or missed safer‑gambling signals. We’ve done the legwork: the fine, the examples and the licence breaches are spelled out, so you can quickly see what to fix and why it matters.