The UK Gambling Commission has imposed a regulatory settlement on Vivaro Limited, trading as vbet, of £337,631 following “a series of failings.”
The monies will go to socially responsible causes and the fine was prompted by an investigation into preventing money laundering and ensuring safer gambling.
The UKGC says that between October 2020 and June 2021, Vivaro failed to comply with the required money laundering and terrorist financing regulations.
Vivaro accepted it breached the licence conditions for a number of reasons, including that customers were able to deposit significant sums of money before know your customer checks were carried out.
One customer was able to deposit £14,850 within two months without sufficient source of funds checks being established.
AML trigger levels were also considered too high based on the average level of customer spend and were therefore not deemed by the UKGC as appropriate to “effectively manage associated money laundering risk.”
The UKGC concluded in a statement: “Our investigation found, and Vivaro accepts, that there were significant weaknesses in its systems relating to how it managed its customers for AML and social responsibility purposes.”
In determining the appropriate outcome, the commission noted in its assessment that Vivaro had been "cooperative with the investigation and had taken proactive and timely action to address the issues raised."
