The UK Gambling Commission said Evolution’s failings were serious enough to consider suspending the supplier’s UK licence, as it published details of the £4.75 million settlement. The case centred on Evolution games appearing on six websites run by two operators that were accessible in Great Britain without the relevant licence.
Earlier this month, Evolution had already agreed the settlement to close a review that began in December 2024. The company said the issue involved content on unlicensed sites and that it moved to cut off the traffic once it was identified.
The regulator said Evolution’s assessment of money-laundering and terrorist-financing risk was not effective enough to flag that two operators it did business with were supplying its games to consumers in Great Britain without a Commission licence. It said the supplier failed to take appropriate steps to identify and assess those risks.
It also found that Evolution did not establish or maintain effective policies, procedures and controls, and that there was a gap between its documented compliance framework and how it operated in practice. The Commission said the safeguards designed to keep the games off unlicensed websites were not effective.
A separate breach related to customer due diligence under licence condition 12.1.2. The Commission said Evolution did not have adequate measures to identify and mitigate risks in its business relationships.
The investigation focused on activity between December 2023 and November 2024, when there were large volumes of visits to the six websites by UK consumers. The regulator said Evolution responded swiftly and comprehensively once the issues were identified, taking immediate action to strengthen its controls, and that subsequent testing did not identify any further concerns.
Evolution acknowledged the failings and accepted it had breached licence conditions. In its release, the company said the operators had actively evaded restrictions, that no broader pattern of unlicensed access to its content in the UK had been identified during the 18-month review, and that it had terminated its relationships with the two operators immediately on discovery. It also said it had introduced enhanced ring-fencing measures.
John Pierce, the Commission’s enforcement director, said the case exposed serious weaknesses in Evolution’s money-laundering risk assessment and its oversight of supply-chain risks. He said operators must keep risk assessments current, regularly tested and reflective of real-world risks, and that the Commission will continue to proactively monitor and test the market for licensed products being made available through illegal operators targeting Great Britain.
