The United Kingdom Gambling Commission published a public statement on 23rd July setting out how Evolution Malta Holding Limited supplied online games to unlicensed gambling businesses. Evolution will pay a £4.75 million settlement after an investigation revealed its games appeared on six unlicensed websites accessible to consumers in the UK.
Unlicensed websites
The investigation found that between December 2023 and November 2024, large volumes of visits to the six unlicensed websites came from UK consumers. Evolution breached regulations by failing to properly identify and assess money laundering and terrorist financing risks, not maintaining effective policies to prevent its games reaching the GB market through unlicensed operators, and not complying with customer due diligence requirements.
John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement, said:
This case exposed serious weaknesses in Evolution’s money laundering risk assessment and its oversight of risks within its supply chain.
“The company’s money laundering risk assessment was outdated and failed to adequately consider the risk of its games being made available through unlicensed operators. As a result, there was a significant gap between the controls on paper and their effectiveness in practice.
“The Commission’s investigation and testing uncovered failings that were serious enough for us to consider licence suspension.
“Evolution responded swiftly and comprehensively once these issues were identified, taking immediate action to strengthen its controls and address our concerns. Our subsequent testing has not identified any further instances of concern.”
Industry lesson
Pierce added: “However, this case provides an important lesson for the industry. Operators must ensure their risk assessments are current, regularly tested and reflective of real-world risks.
They need to understand who they are supplying their games to, how and where those games are being accessed in practice, and maintain effective ongoing controls that give them confidence their products are not supporting illegal gambling.”
The £4.75 million settlement reflects the seriousness of the compliance gaps the investigation uncovered, which spanned over a year and involved significant UK consumer traffic to unlicensed websites.
