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Dan Ippolito
As Casino City's associate editor, Dan produces and edits all of our weekly newsletters, and he writes about the gaming industry for our websites and the GPWA Times Magazine. Dan graduated from Marist College in 2017 with a degree in Communications and a concentration in Sports. More articles by Dan Ippolito

Top 10 gambling fines through Q1 2025

14 April 2025
By Dan Ippolito

You have probably heard a phrase similar to “rules are important” or “this is why we have rules” at some point in your life. Well, rules or guidelines are extremely key when it comes to the gambling industry and for those companies and operators who choose not to abide by them, they certainly pay the price.

Here, we take a look at 10 fines that have been dished out since the beginning of the year.

10. €11,115
The Gaming Supervisory Authority under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania imposed a fine of €11,115 on the gaming organizer UAB Novogaming Vilnius for violations.

On 4 December 2024, by admitting a minor to the company's slot machine parlor and allowing him to be there between 7:27 p.m. and 8:23 p.m., the company violated Article 10.

9. £95,450
Merkur Slots UK paid a £95,450 fine for social responsibility failings at one of its adult gaming centers.

The gambling business paid the money after a U.K. Gambling Commission investigation into its treatment of a customer who lost £1,981 between 1 and 3 November 2023 at its premises in Stockport.

Investigations revealed the operator failed to interact with the customer when they gambled from 1:50 p.m. to 6:43 p.m. on 1 November, and between 1:28 p.m. on 2 November and 12:57 a.m. on 3 November.

This breached the Commission’s License Conditions and Codes of Practice which states that premises-based businesses must interact with customers in a way which minimizes the risk of customers experiencing harms associated with gambling.

8. $130,000
Australian registered online bookmaker VicBet was fined $130,000 for two breaches of its customer care obligations.

The Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission’s investigations into complaints about VicBet found the bookmaker had:

- Offered and provided a $1,800 bonus bet to a customer after they asked for their betting account to be closed in September 2022. VicBet was fined $50,000.
- Repeatedly sent gambling promotional material to a customer after they permanently self-excluded from VicBet in March 2020. The penalty was an $80,000 fine.

7. £686,070
The land-based gambling business received a £686,070 penalty after a U.K. Gambling Commission investigation revealed social responsibility and anti-money laundering failings.

Corbett Bookmakers Limited also underwent a third-party audit to ensure it is effectively implementing its anti-money laundering and safer gambling policies.

Social responsibility failures included failing to identify a consumer who staked £23,674 in 13 days as potentially at risk, inadequately interacting with another during a four-hour session involving 56 bets and a £3,523 loss, and neglecting to adequately interact with a third who staked £47,416 and lost £6,741 over 10 weeks demonstrate a failure to implement sufficient consumer protection measures regarding potential gambling harm.

Due to high financial thresholds, customers could stake and lose significant sums without sufficient Know Your Customer evidence or verification of funds' legitimacy, as exemplified by one customer's £47,000 stake and £14,000 loss over eight months without verification, compounded by the Licensee's money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment failing to consider the full scope of relevant risks and thus lacking a sufficiently risk-based approach to anti-money laundering.

6. $900,000
The Dutch Gaming Authority sent a fine of $900,000 to Sarah Eternal for illegally offering online games of chance to players in the Netherlands on the Casino Sky website.

On the Casino Sky website, no measures had been taken to exclude players from the Netherlands. During the investigation, the Ksa found several abuses that led to a higher fine than the basic fine of €600,000.

5. £1 million
Online gambling business Greentube Alderney Limited, trading as Admiral Casino, was fined £1 million after a U.K. Gambling Commission investigation revealed social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.

The company was not fully implementing its own policy aimed at ensuring customer limits are based on regular, sustainable income.

The company also inconsistently applied its "risky occupations" policy; for instance, it failed to recognize or mitigate the heightened money laundering risk associated with a "finance manager" with access to potentially misappropriated funds, omitting this from the customer's risk profile.

4. €1.2 million
In January, the Dutch Gaming Authority announced a fine of €1,275,000 for illegal provider Winning Poker Network. WPN allowed Dutch players to gamble without the necessary license, and that is prohibited.

Dutch players could go to the website americascardroom.eu to gamble illegally. The Ksa then informed WPN that it intends to impose a burden under penalty, after which it was no longer possible to play on the website.

3. £1.4 million
Gambling operator AG Communications Limited paid £1,407,834 after a U.K. Gambling Commission investigation revealed social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.

The operator, which trades as AspireGlobal and runs 58 websites, will pay the money to socially responsible causes as part of a settlement with the Commission.

The operator failed to conduct a safer gambling interaction despite one customer losing £6,000 in 48 hours. A telephone interaction was attempted but only when the daily loss limit of £5,000 in 24 hours was reached.

In addition, one customer was able to deposit and lose £7,000 in just over four hours in the early hours. This customer was able to play through the backstop in place at the time due to a system error which failed to prevent the customer from depositing above the backstop limit.

2. €8.4 million
Olympic Casino Group Baltija did not take sufficient steps to identify the origin of Šarunas Stepukonis' losing funds, and the monitoring of his financial transactions was only formal and ineffective.

Such violations were identified by Lithuania’s Gaming Supervisory Authority, which conducted an inspection of OCGB's activities and the company was fined almost €8.4 million.

During the inspection, evidence was collected that Stepukonis' gambling was irresponsible. The gambling company should have noticed this, especially since the client was assigned a personal manager who saw all of his transactions.

1. $10.5 million
The Nevada Gaming Control Board entered into a proposed settlement with Resorts World Las Vegas and its parent companies regarding the complaint for disciplinary action originally filed by the NGCB on 15 August 2024.

The stipulation aims to settle an amended complaint against RWLV, which alleges unsuitable operations due to illegal bookmaking activities by Mathew Bowyer and Damien LeForbes at the property.

Top 10 gambling fines through Q1 2025 is republished from Online.CasinoCity.com.

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