The UK arm of Caesars Entertainment was recently fined £13 million by the British Gambling Commission (UKGC). The fine came after the company failed to prevent gambling addicts from losing hundreds of thousands of pounds on its platform.

Investigation reveals lapses

According to the Gambling Commission, the personal licenses of three senior managers of the company have been revoked. All three have now left the company. Caesars will have to pay £13 million in fine for its shortcomings. This is the largest fine that the commission has ever levied on a company.

UKGC chief Neil McArthur commented on the fine and said,

“The failings in this case are extremely serious. A culture of putting customer safety at the heart of business decisions should be set from the very top of every company and Caesars failed to do this.”

On Thursday, the Commission said that the company failed to stop two gamblers from losing over £550,000 in a span of one year. Both users were known to have problem gambling issues. The company did not check the source of funds from numerous customers. One of them played with £3.5 million and lost at least £1.6 million in just three months.

Caesars has a strong presence in the UK

Caesars runs two casinos in London- Empire, and Playboy. It has five casinos in other British cities. The company has not commented on the fine publicly yet. The disclosure of fines comes just a day after the Commission announced that VIP membership plans for all people under the age of 25 years will be banned. Even if a user is 25 years, he will have to undergo thorough checks to ensure that he has a clean financial history and no problems related to gambling.

The regulator is also trying to make online gambling advertising regulations stricter. It is also working on limiting the speed of spins on the roulette and online slot games. The industry will go through an extensive phase of tightening rules and crackdowns this year. The UKGC believes that ongoing practices are proving to be exploitative of vulnerable groups. It will also seek to change its licensing procedure of LCCP later in the year.

Note that the gambling industry has been affected badly because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic because of which most casinos are shuttered. Major sporting events have been canceled as well. Therefore, operators now want more people to engage with their online casinos. Opponents are concerned that this could increase gambling addiction rates.