Gambling Commission warns land-based casinos after £5m Rank Group sanction
Confirming its settlement with Grosvenor owner Rank Group, the Gambling Commission said anti-money laundering and safer gambling risks are not confined to online operators.
The Gambling Commission has confirmed a £5m settlement with Rank Group over anti-money laundering and social responsibility failings at its land-based casino estate, and used the announcement to put other premises-based operators on notice.
The sanction covers conduct at Grosvenor Casinos Limited and Gaming Group Limited, the Rank subsidiaries that run 51 venues across the UK. Rank had flagged the provision in a July trading update, saying it had submitted a settlement proposal to the regulator in May over what it called "historical compliance failings".
In a statement reported by EGR, Rank said it had accepted the £5m settlement in line with its earlier provision, adding that there was "no further impact on the group's profits" and that remedial actions had "substantially completed".
The Gambling Commission's investigation found Rank had failed to update its anti-money laundering policies to reflect changes introduced by the Money Laundering Regulations in 2020. It also identified inconsistencies in how the operator applied decisions to customers assessed as carrying elevated money laundering risk.
Further failings included unclear policies that led to inappropriate risk ratings for high-risk customers and high-risk sources of funds, according to the regulator, along with customer due diligence checks that fell short of Rank's own internal standards.
On the social responsibility side, the regulator cited a failure to carry out safer gambling interactions with a customer who lost £50,000, and a lack of engagement with another who won around £260,000 before losing roughly £250,000 within 12 days. A third case involved a customer who had recently returned from self-exclusion and was not monitored before losing £25,000.
Rank's casino network will now undergo a third-party audit to check that anti-money laundering and safer gambling controls are being properly applied going forward.
Gambling Commission executive director of operations Sue Young said enforcement cases of this scale are usually linked to online gambling, but that "the risks of anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures are equally alive in the land-based sector". She added that premises-based operators should examine the case closely to avoid "costly and inevitable Commission action".
The Rank settlement follows a run of enforcement activity by the regulator this year, including sanctions against QuinnBet and Betfred worth £609,000 and £900,000 respectively, and a £4.75m settlement with slots supplier Evolution after its games were found on unlicensed sites targeting UK players, EGR reported.