The gambling regulator has imposed a £700,000 fine on an online gaming operator found to be responsible for a raft of compliance breaches.

BMO Manx Limited was ordered to pay a discretionary civil penalty of £1m discounted by 30% to £700,000 as a settlement had been agreed at an early stage.

In a public statement, the Gambling Supervision Commission (GSC) said the scale of penalty was ‘reasonable and proportionate’ and reflected the failures admitted.

BMO, a subsidiary of the Betsson Group, held an online gambling license issued by the GSC from November 2021 until it surrendered it in August last year.

An inspection by the GSC in May 2023 highlighted evidence of contraventions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Code.

A regulatory investigation followed.

This identified a range of issues including that the company did not conduct enhanced due diligence despite customers being identified as posing a higher risk of money laundering and/or terrorist financing and identifying unusual activity.

The suspicious activity reporting chain was found to be ‘inefficient and diluted’ across BMO’s operations via Peru and Malta and the company failed to comply with rules that these reports should be provided to the Financial Intelligence Unit ‘as soon as is practicable’.

BMO did not record and maintain procedures and controls for identifying politically exposed persons, the investigation found.

And it did not have appropriate measures to monitor and test compliance with AML/CFT legislation.

Moreover, BMO did not implement its business risk assessment until about six months after starting online gambling activities and its technology risk assessment policy was not specific the risks relevant to its business.

The GSC said it was satisfied that civil penalty reflected the serious nature of the non-compliance and issues identified.

‘The nature, extent and type of contraventions were of such a nature as to cause the Commission to conclude that, in all the prevailing circumstances, the imposition of a discretionary civil penalty was appropriate,’ it said.

Among the ‘key takeaways’ it listed, the regulator said acquiring a block of customers or transferring another book of business to an Isle of Man operator required careful scrutiny and analysis to ensure standards of compliance expected and required here can be achieved.

‘Greater risk may attach to such cases where customers are transferring from jurisdictions where regulatory standards and oversight are accepted and understood to be lesser than the accepted international standards required at all times in the Isle of Man,’ the GSC said.

The Commission said it will exercise its powers ‘robustly’ if material risks are identified to ensure that the Isle of Man ‘retains its reputation as a responsible, and well-regulated jurisdiction’.