🎲 Spreadex Limited

£2m fine for online operator Spreadex Limited +

+

+

+

+

15 May 2025 +

+

+

+

+

+

A gambling business will pay a £2,022,000 penalty after a Gambling Commission investigation revealed Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and social responsibility failings. +

+

+

Spreadex Limited – which operates from Spreadex.com – will also have to undergo a third-party audit to ensure it is effectively implementing its anti-money laundering and safer gambling policies, procedures and controls. +

The failures were revealed during a compliance assessment in July 2023 and relate to the operator’s Gambling Commission licence to offer casino and fixed odds betting.1 +

Anti-money laundering failures included: +

+

the Licensee’s Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (ML/TF) risk assessment failed to consider key customer, product, geographic and payment risks as detailed in the Commission’s guidance and therefore failed to take a sufficiently risk-based approach to Anti-Money Laundering (AML). +

the AML policies, procedures and controls were not appropriate to prevent ML/TF. The Licensee was overly reliant on customers’ self-reported financial position and customers were able to continue depositing substantial amounts of money without providing Source Of Funds (SOF) information in line with the risks present. For example, a customer opened an account and deposited circa £64,000 into the business within a short period of time but the Licensee did not request SOF information in line with the risks present and the customer went on to lose £50,000 within one month. +

the Licensee repeated the same checks on customers without increasing the levels of scrutiny when a customer’s risk increased due to significantly larger deposits or gambling activity. +

+

A social responsibility failure included: +

+

not conducting a stronger form of customer interaction to ensure that a customer who hit a daily deposit limit of £3,340 12 times in 14 days

Following a review of the operating licence of Spreadex Limited (the Licensee), the Commission found that between September 2022 and November 2023 the Licensee: Breached paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of Licence condition 12.1.1: Anti-money laundering - Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing. Failed to comply with paragraph 9c of Social Responsibility Code Provision (“SRCP”) 3.4.3: Customer Interaction. Failed to comply with a specific condition attached to its operating licence Failed to sufficiently consider ordinary code provision (“OCP”) 2.1.1 Anti-money laundering - casino*. 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: impose a warning under section 117 (1)(a) of the Gambling Act 2005 (the Act); impose a financial penalty of £2,022,000; and,  attach an additional condition to the Licensee’s operating licence under section 117(1)(b) of the Act. The Licensee co-operated with the Commission throughout the investigation. * An OCP sets out good practice. Operators may adopt alternative approaches to those set out in ordinary code provisions if they have fully considered the risk and recorded its reasoning

Online gambling business Spreadex Limited to pay £1.36 million +

+

+

+

+

25 August 2022 +

+

+

+

+

+

Gambling business Spreadex Limited is to pay £1.36 million after a Gambling Commission investigation revealed social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures. +

+

+

The operator – which runs spreadex.com – will pay the money to socially responsible causes as part of a settlement with the Commission. +

Leanne Oxley, Gambling Commission Director of Enforcement and Intelligence, said: +

“Whilst it is disappointing to see anti-money laundering and social responsibility breaches occur despite our extensive published cases highlighting similar failures, we note the swift and robust action the Licensee took to bring itself back to compliance. We expect similar commitment and engagement across the gambling sector.” +

Social responsibility failures included: +

+

having financial alerts which were ineffective and allowed customers to lose significant amounts over a short period of time +

placing an overreliance on financial alerts to identify customers at potential risk of experiencing harms +

not sufficiently recording and evaluating its customer interactions +

one customer was able to deposit £1.7 million and lose £500,000 during the course of a one month period – although customer interactions had taken place they had not been sufficiently evaluated, and did not include considering the effectiveness of restricting the account. +

+

Anti-money laundering failures included: +

+

a customer who met a £25,000 financial deposit alert had the alert for further review increased to £100,000 based on a self-declaration of income and an open-source check +

a customer was able to deposit £365,000 and lose £284,000 over a period of 3 months without Source of Funds being sufficiently established +

a customer was able to continue depositing after providing redacted bank statements in response to a request for evidence of