888 Holdings wins Ontario gaming licence

The country’s newly regulated market is set to launch on April 4, the company said on Thursday. 888 now holds licences in 19 locally regulated markets, including seven states in the US, with revenue from locally regulated and taxed markets representing 74% of 2021 revenue.

888 was this week fined £9.4m for social responsibility and money laundering failings by the UK's Gambling Commission, which also gave it an official warning and ordered extensive independent auditing.

The fine – one of the largest imposed by the regulator to date – is the second enforcement action for the 888 group. In 2017 it paid a £7.8m penalty package for failing vulnerable customers.

The commission said 888 had failed to effectively identify players at risk of harm because their policies only required financial checks after a customer had deposited £40,000.

Its social responsibility failures included, among other things: not effectively identifying players at risk of harm because their policies determined financial checks should be carried out after a customer had deposited £40,000; not taking into account the commission’s formal guidance on customer interaction; giving a customer they knew was an NHS worker earning £1,400 a month a monthly deposit cap of £1,300.