The British
Gambling Commission has lifted the suspension of Matchbook operator
Triplebets remote operating licence
The UK Gambling Commission has lifted the suspension of
TripleBets licence because it has implemented the remedial measures
required. Additional licence conditions set out remain.
Triplebet
operated a betting exchange and a remote casino under the trading name
Matchbook. Its operating licence was suspended on February 17 as
part of a package of sanctions for social responsibility and money laundering
failings.
Among the failings it found were a case of a player who
deposited a large sum of money and and withdrew it on the same day without
gambling any of it, with no monitoring or interaction from Matchbook. A
different player gambled over £2m in a single day but did not receive any
source of funds or source of wealth checks.
Triplebet also allowed
account-to-account money transfers, which the regulator said was an
obvious risk for money laundering". The Commission said Triplebet was not able
to produce a record of any account-to-account transfer being
refused.
After the Gambling Commission began its review of its
practices, Triplebet engaged the services of performance improvement
consultancy Alvarez and Marsal
While the Commission acknowledged that by
June 2018, Triplebet had adopted an effective responsible gambling
policy, it had not adopted all recommendations by the time of the licence
hearing in late January, after deciding to implement them in phases. As a
result, the licence was suspended.
The recommendations provided by
Alavarez and Marsal included new policies for the fair treatment of customers,
the creationnt of a new compliance committee, the development of a new
responsible gambling algorithm and steps towards Gamcares Safer Gambling
Standard certification.
The consultants also said Triplebet should
introduce AML and problem gambling training by GamCare for 30 key members of
staff and daily screening to recognise players that may be those subject to
international sanctions or may be politically exposed people (PEPs).
In
addition, Triplebet was required to continue to work to the standards the
consultants recommended, provide auditors' reports every six months on its
compliance with these recommendations and stop facilitating account-to-account
money transfers.
A Matchbook spokesperson said: This announcement
marks the culmination of many months of hard work and investment across our
entire business.
We are extremely proud of the dedication and
commitment of our staff during a very challenging economic period that has
enabled Matchbook to once again offer a much improved exchange platform to UK
residents as we continue to grow our market share and deliver an industry
leading platform and liquidity pool for our customers.
After the
initial fallout, Matchbooks CEO at the time, Mark Brosnan, resigned in
May. That exit followed the company being fined about $967,000 (£740,000)
a month earlier over its failure to play by the rules. Brosnan had been with
the company for 16 years, and asserted that his departure was not related to
the investigation or the license suspension in the U.K.
Following the
lifting of the license suspension Matchbook has reappeared on the influential
odds comparison website Oddschecker at the expense of rival Betdaq who have
never had regulatory problems in their 20 year history. Another rival,
Smarkets, remains on the site and together they provide some competition for
market share leader, Betfair.
Matchbook's rise as an exchange player
charging only 2% commission was one of the moving forces behind Betfair's
reduction of its commission from a massive 5% to 2% also. |