By Gabriel princewill-
The Rank group are hiding the truth about the actions taken or not taken against a corrupt manager who cost them a £500,000 fine in 2018. In October 2018, the Commission announced it had agreed a financial payment in lieu of penalty with land- and online-based casino operator The Rank Group. This agreement was a penalty fine of £500,000 against the Rank Group following an investigation into the corporation’s failure to protect a customer with significant gambling problems. The customer in question was a longstanding, very high net value individual who lived overseas.
The Commission’s investigation concluded that the Rank Group failed to adequately address the customer’s problems, which allowed the customer to lose in excess of £1 million in a single 24-hour period.A Commission investigation revealed that Rank failed to interact with a customer who was displaying problematic behaviour. In addition to that, the unnamed manager contacted the gambler during a self-exclusion period.
The crooked manager also did not follow rules for the provision of credit. The customer who gambled substantial amounts with Rank’s land-based Grosvenor Casino and online at www.grosvenorcasinos.com. In one 24-hour period the customer lost a huge £1m that had already been credited to his account. The manager in question breached the policies that govern the gambling industry. Under one of the guiding rules: in circumstances where remote gambling operators choose to offer credit to customers, such operators must set out to the customer the terms and conditions associated with that credit.
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Although the Rank’s policy does not to offer credit to digital customers, the company swerved the rules and agreed to grant the customer a credit facility, allowing him to draw down funds prior to the completion of banking transfers. And although the Rank Group set arrangements in place to monitor credit and repayment, the arrangement was not formalised for a period of six weeks, during which time the customer’s online spending escalated dramatically.
Self-exclusion (SRC 3.5.1): in 2016, the customer decided to self-exclude from Rank’s gambling operations . In doing so, he informed the Rank Group of his well considered decision to stop gambling for a minimum period of six months. The Rank Group agreed to take reasonable steps to prevent him from gambling during that period. However, during this period of self-exclusion, a Rank general manager visited the customer at his home overseas as part of a “keep in contact” networking visit, following which the general manager requested that the customer be re-instated. This was contrary to their policies.
FAILURE
Applying rules under customer interaction (SRC 3.4.1), the Gambling Commission found that Rank failed to recognise signs of problematic gambling behaviour, including escalated spending and high speed of play, repeated requests for credit increases and bonuses, overt signs of frustration, and periods of self-exclusion. After being caught flagrantly violating the rules, Rank Group agreed to pay a settlement of £500,000 in lieu of a financial penalty. However, there is still something missing. We don’t know what actions were taking against the manager who committed this infringements. Intuitively, he should have been personally fined, suspended, or really, fired. This aspect appears to have been kept quiet, but The Eye Of Media.Com demands that it is in the public interest to know what actions were taken against him or her.
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It is quite conceivable that he was kept in his post without any actions taken, more especially if the Rank Group were secretly complicit in his conduct. Many gambling operators are motivated by greed, and the only evidence that clears an organisation caught red handed is transparency. Over the past two months, we have contacted the Rank Group on two different occasions to request this information, hoping to stumble on it by chance when different individuals are on the communication line. Each time, they have declined to disclose the information. We cannot compel them to because as private companies, they are not subject to the Freedom Of Information Act.
PUBLIC INTEREST
However, the Gambling Commission are subject to an FOI, and the ICO have confirmed that there may be a public interest in establishing the truth about this particulaer matter. According to the ICO, the identity of the manager himself may be protected from public disclosure because of the Data Protection Act, more so, as the Rank has already paid the price for his alarming indiscretion. Notwithstanding, the public need to be assured that The Rank Group are an honourable body with integrity. The Gambling Commission told this publication that information like this will be published if and when it is available, but where decoy about confirming what action was taken against the manager in question.
The public deserve to be rest assured that individuals who exploit the addictions and weaknesses of those with a gambling problem are not allowed to act with impunity. And we intend to do our utmost to make it difficult for them to do so.
At the time, Richard Watson, Gambling Commission executive director, said: “We expect all operators to protect any consumer who maybe experiencing problems with their gambling, and operators shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that VIP customers don’t experience difficulties.
“No matter how wealthy customers are, operators still need to monitor them effectively to ensure they aren’t showing signs of problem gambling. It is certainly not appropriate to visit customers during a period when they are self-excluded.
“This penalty package would have been a lot higher were it not for the positive action Rank took in terms of self-reporting their failures and being open and transparent during our investigation. The best way to demonstrate the integrity of this statement is to be transparent about their actions against the individual manager who actively sought to further the misery of a man with severe gambling addictions. his query will not be disappearing anytime soon.
On Thursday, the Gambling Commission issued a warning to the gambling industry against None Disclosure Agreements(NDA’s) . The industry’s watchdog and regulator have noted that some gambling industries use NDA’s to gag their customers from reporting misconducts occurring in the industry or prevent a consumer from being able to seek treatment for gambling addiction . In some cases, gambling operators prevent their customers from discussing their gambling history with treatment providers, or report regulatory breaches against the regulator’s rules.
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