TLDR
- Evolution Malta Holding will pay a £4.75 million settlement to the UK Gambling Commission.
- The company’s casino games appeared on six unlicensed websites that consumers in Great Britain could access.
- The regulator said Evolution’s money laundering risk assessment failed to flag two operators supplying its games without a licence.
- The issues ran from December 2023 to November 2024, and the Commission considered suspending the company’s licence.
- Later testing found no further problems, but the Commission says it will keep monitoring the market.
Evolution Malta Holding Limited will pay a £4.75 million settlement to the UK Gambling Commission. The regulator found that the company’s online casino games appeared on six unlicensed websites that consumers in Great Britain could access.
The company holds a Commission licence as a software and casino game host provider. The Commission published a public statement on the case on 23 July 2026.
The statement set out how the licence holder’s games ended up with unlicensed gambling businesses. It also listed the rules the company broke.
What the Investigation Found
The Commission said Evolution’s risk assessment for money laundering and terrorist financing was not effective enough. It failed to flag that two operators the company did business with were supplying its games to British consumers without a Commission licence.
The problems covered the period from December 2023 to November 2024. During that time, the six websites received large volumes of visits from UK consumers.
The regulator said Evolution breached regulations in three ways. First, it did not take appropriate steps to identify and assess money laundering and terrorist financing risks.
Second, it did not set up and maintain effective policies, procedures and controls to stop unlicensed operators from offering its games in Great Britain. Third, it did not comply with customer due diligence requirements.
John Pierce, the Commission’s Director of Enforcement, said the case “exposed serious weaknesses in Evolution’s money laundering risk assessment and its oversight of risks within its supply chain.”
He said the company’s risk assessment was outdated. It did not properly consider the risk of its games being offered through unlicensed operators.
According to Pierce, this created a large gap between the controls the company had on paper and how well they worked in practice. He said the failings were serious enough for the Commission to consider suspending the company’s licence.
Evolution’s Response and Next Steps
Pierce said Evolution “responded swiftly and comprehensively” once the issues were found. The company took immediate action to strengthen its controls and address the regulator’s concerns.
The Commission said its later testing did not find any further instances of concern.
Pierce said the case is a lesson for the wider industry. He said operators must keep their risk assessments current, test them regularly and make sure they reflect real-world risks.
He added that operators need to understand who they supply their games to, and how and where those games are accessed. They must also keep effective controls in place so their products do not support illegal gambling.
The Commission said it will continue to monitor and test the market. It aims to find licensed products being offered through illegal operators targeting consumers in Great Britain.
“Where we find failings, we will take decisive regulatory action,” Pierce said.
