LeoVegas, the web-based casino company, has been punished by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission for its shortcomings involving deceptive promotions and the managing of clients at the conclusion of their self-exclusion time.
After evaluating the license of the betting company, the Gambling Commission slammed LeoVegas with a fine of £600,000, and also demanded the company to divest itself of whatever money received as a result of its shortcomings, and were also forced to reimburse the expenses of the investigation.
The commission discovered in the course of its investigation that LeoVegas:
- Was accountable for 41 deceptive advertisements
- Refused to refund 11,205 clients when they decided to self-exclude and close down their account
- Deliver promotional product to 1,894 individuals who had earlier self-excluded
- Permitted 413 earlier self-excluded clients to bet without first talking to those clients
- or implementing a 24-hour abstinence period before permitting them to bet.
According to Neil McArthur, the Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission:
“The result of this case is a clear indication to everyone that we will be hard with license owners who deceive customers or do not meet the criteria we stipulated in our license terms and codes of conduct,” he said.
“We would like operators to gain some lessons from our findings and apply those lessons to improve the standards.”
LeoVegas, which holds a remote gambling license for online casino, sports betting and bingo found itself in hot water for eight deceptive advertisements on its own website, while 23 more deceptive instants were found on affiliate websites.
The well-known gambling company has vowed to clean up its act in regards to both helping problem gambling and deceptive advertising by reviewing all internal procedures. It also announced late last year it was cutting back on the number of affiliates in their program.
“Although we value all the hard work all our affiliates have been putting in to the partnership, we are only able to continue to work with a small number of affiliates who satisfy our compliance standards, share our commitment to compliance, and further have the operational scale to guarantee ongoing compliance,” the gambling operator said.
Other gambling businesses which have felt the wraith of the Commission include Lottoland and BGO who were both fined for breaches of the upgraded advertising policy.
