The Gambling Commission (GC) has revealed that it considered suspending Evolution‘s licence after discovering that it had supplied its services to six unlicensed websites accessible to UK players.
Evolution announced last week that it had reached a £4.75m settlement with the GC after an investigation revealed its games appeared on six unlicensed platforms. Chief Executive Officer Martin Carlesund noted that it wasn’t an acceptable situation and moved quickly to address it.
The commission has followed up the supplier’s announcement this week with its own statement, noting that its anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing assessment was not effective enough to flag two operators supplying games to UK players without a GC licence.
The GC added that there was a large volume of visits to the six websites by UK consumers between December 2023 and November 2024.
John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement, commented: “This case exposed serious weaknesses in Evolution’s anti-money laundering risk assessment and its oversight of risks within its supply chain.
“The company’s AML risk assessment was outdated and failed to adequately consider the risk of its games being made available through unlicensed operators.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 GC noted that Evolution breached regulations by:
- Not taking appropriate steps to identify and assess the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing.
- Not establishing and maintaining effective policies, procedure and controls needed to ensure that its games were not made available in the GB market by unlicensed operators.
- Not complying with customer due diligence requirements.
The commission said that the investigation and testing uncovered failings that were serious enough for them to consider a licence suspension, but Evolution took action immediately to address the issues and strengthen its controls.
Subsequent testing didn’t identify any further concern instances, but the GC stated the case highlighted an important lesson for the industry.
“The Commission’s investigation and testing uncovered failings that were serious enough for us to consider licence suspension.”
John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement
Pierce added: “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.
“Operators should be under no illusion. We will continue to proactively monitor and test the market to identify licensed products being made available through illegal operators targeting consumers in Great Britain. Where we find failings, we will take decisive regulatory action.”
Last week, Evolution explained its team fully cooperated with the GC during the review process, that it continuously strengthens its technical measures and refines its procedures, such as enhanced ring-fencing measures, and that it remains committed to compliance investment and constructive collaboration with regulators.
Carlesund said: “At Evolution, we always want to do what is right, and it is not acceptable that six unlicensed sites offered Evolution content in the regulated UK market.
“We do not want traffic from unlicensed operators and will always move quickly to address any such situation. We welcome the conclusion of the review and remain focused on continuing to supply our world-leading games to licensed operators in the UK.”
