Rank to pay £500,000 UKGC penalty package for problem gambling failures
Overseas high-net-worth individual was allowed to lose £1m in a 24-hour period
Rank Group will pay a £500,000 penalty package to the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) after failings in its problem gambling policies allowed an overseas customer to lose £1m in the space of 24 hours.
A UKGC investigation revealed that Rank failed to interact with the customer who was displaying problematic behaviour, had also contacted him during a self-exclusion period and did not follow established UKGC rules for the provision of credit.
The high-net-worth (HNW) individual was gambling in Rank’s land-based Grosvenor Casinos and via its grosvenorcasinos.com website. The individual was a long-standing Grosvenor Casinos customer whose gambling activity escalated rapidly in 2017 after he opened an online account.
In its investigation, the UKGC found that Rank had failed to correctly set out its terms and conditions when offering credit to the HNW individual online. Rank’s standard policy is not to offer credit to online customers; however, an exception was made by Rank VIP staff when the individual encountered issues transferring offshore funds into a UK bank account.
Staff extended credit to the individual on an informal basis and did not set out the terms, allowing the customer to draw and repay the credit multiple times over six weeks, racking up the £1m debt.
In addition, Rank carried out a ‘keep-in-contact visit’ at the customer’s home address despite the customer entering a six-month self-exclusion period in 2016. Finally, Rank’s failure to spot that the individual was a problem gambler, despite losing money and self-excluding contravened the UKGC’s social responsibility code.
Richard Watson, Gambling Commission executive director, said: “We expect all operators to protect any consumer who maybe experiencing problems with their gambling, and operators shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that VIP customers don’t experience difficulties.
“No matter how wealthy customers are, operators still need to monitor them effectively to ensure they aren’t showing signs of problem gambling. It is certainly not appropriate to visit customers during a period when they are self-excluded.”
As part of its penalty package, Rank has agreed to make a £500,000 payment which will be used for data analysis of HNW individuals gambling habits and thematic research. The company has also agreed to provide datasets of its online and offline casino customer play for the GambleAware research project. It has also terminated its relationship with the customer involved.
Watson added: “This penalty package would have been a lot higher were it not for the positive action Rank took in terms of self-reporting their failures and being open and transparent during our investigation.”