AML concerns lead to regulatory warnings for 888 Denmark

The Danish Gambling Authority (DGA) has ordered 888 Denmark Limited to amend its procedures in order to comply with the requirements in section 25(1) and section 26(1) of the Danish Anti-Money Laundering Act.

The section states that the operator must investigate unusually large transaction patterns and activities which do not have a clearly economic or demonstrable legal purpose, in order to establish whether there is any suspicion or reasonable reason to suspect that these are or have been linked to money laundering.

As well as this, the DGA found that 888 Denmark also failed its obligation under section 26(1), which states a report needs to be made to the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime if there is reason to believe that any activity undertaken on the site is somehow linked to money laundering. 

The specific case brought against 888 Denmark relates to over DKK 1m being deposited into an individual account over a three month period. 

Despite performing a background check on the user and request income/asset documentation, 888 Denmark is ruled to have failed its obligations due to the fact that it allowed the player to continue playing for a month despite them declining to provide the requested documents. 

Although the operator states that it did not find any reason to report the incident to the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime, the DGA has ruled otherwise and has stated that 888 Denmark should have prevented the player from gambling earlier than it did. 

As a result, the DGA has ordered the operator to amend its procedures in order to possibly prevent instances of money laundering earlier than in this case and to report to the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime when encountering similar situations.