🎲 ProgressPlay Limited

£1m fine for online operator ProgressPlay Limited +

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21 August 2025 +

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A gambling business will pay a £1m fine after a Gambling Commission compliance assessment revealed Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and social responsibility failings. +

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ProgressPlay Limited – which runs 134 websites – has also been given a warning and is expected to undergo a third-party audit following the conclusion of the licence review to ensure it is effectively implementing anti-money laundering and social responsibility policies, procedures and controls. +

Anti-money laundering failures included: +

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the Licensee did not conduct an appropriate Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (MLTF) risk assessment and did not implement appropriate controls to minimise the risk of MLTF +

not considering all risks associated with its business and therefore failed to take a sufficiently risk-based approach to AML +

failing to sufficiently scrutinise transactions carried out during the course of customer relationships—including, where necessary, verifying the Source of Funds (SoF)—to ensure those transactions were consistent with the casino’s understanding of the customer, their business activities, and their risk profile. +

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Social responsibility failures included: +

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not having in place adequate systems and processes to effectively monitor customer activity at the point of account opening - this meant that early identification of any potential gambling related harm or the implementation of appropriate interventions was put at risk +

employing a customer interactions policy which failed to adequately address the elements of identify, act and evaluate set out in the Remote Customer Interaction section of the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice +

failure to implement adequate processes to understand the impact of individual interactions and actions on a customer’s behaviour, the continued risk of potential harm and t

Following a review of the operating licence undertaken against ProgressPlay Limited (the Licensee) the Commission found that the Licensee: Breached paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of Licence Condition 12.1.1 - Anti-money laundering - Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.Breached Licence Condition 12.1.2 Anti-money laundering measures for operators based in foreign jurisdictions.Failed to comply with paragraphs 1, 4, 9 & 12 of Social Responsibility Code Provision 3.4.3: Customer Interaction. Failure to comply with a social responsibility code provision is a breach of a licence condition by virtue of section 82(1) of the Gambling Act 2005. In addition, Officials consider the Licensee failed to adequately consider Ordinary Code Provision (“OCP”) 2.1.2 paragraph 1 and OCP 2.1.1 paragraph 1 – Anti-money laundering. In line with the Commission’s Licensing, compliance and enforcement policy statement, the Indicative sanctions guidance and the Statement of principles for determining financial penalties, the Commission has decided to: (i) Give the Licensee a warning under section 117(1)(a) of the Act(ii) attach an additional condition to the Licensee’s operating licence under section 117(1)(b) of the Act requiring the Licensee to conduct a third-party audit within 6 months of the conclusion of the review, to examine whether the Licensee is effectively implementing its anti-money laundering and social responsibility policies, procedures and controls(iii) impose a financial penalty of £1,000,000 under section 121 of the Act. The Licensee co-operated with the Commission throughout the investigation and took corrective steps to address the identified failings.