Aspire Global firm AG Communications has been hit with a £1.4 million [$1.8 million] penalty by the Gambling Commission for “wholly unacceptable” failures to step in and protect at-risk customers and not meeting anti-money laundering rules.
The commission said AG Communications, which trades as Aspire Global and runs 58 websites, did not have proper systems in place to stop customers from gambling thousands of pounds in a short space of time.
It said the group did not act quickly enough despite one customer losing £6,000 in 48 hours, only phoning the customer when the daily loss limit of £5,000 had been reached.
Another customer was able to lose £7,000 in just over four hours in the early hours after a system error failed to prevent them from depositing above the backstop limit, according to the commission.
