A top accountant says it’s up to bosses to ensure gambling companies keep their noses clean.

Elaine McCormack, senior manager at KPMG in Douglas, was speaking after a number of companies got into trouble with the authorities for their advertisements.

Last week, the Examiner reported that island-based GVC Holdings, which owns Foxy Bingo among other brands, had been fined £350,000 by the UK Gambling Commission for repeatedly misleading gamblers with adverts relating to free bonuses.

Ms McCormack said: ’Gambling businesses are coming under ever increasing pressure from regulators, with their day-to-day operating practices attracting significant scrutiny.’

William Hill is the latest company in the UK to come under fire for control failures, being hit with a £6.2m penalty package by the UK Gambling Commission for breaches of anti-money laundering and social responsibility regulations.

The commission criticised senior management for failure to ’mitigate risks and have sufficient numbers of staff to ensure their anti-money laundering and social responsibility processes were effective’.

Anti-money laundering prevention and responsible gaming have been high on the regulator’s agenda for some time and are reflected within the three core principles for both the Isle of Man and UK regulators. These are:-

Ensuring that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way;

Preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder, or being used to support crime; and

Protecting children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling.

Ms McCormack said: ’It is imperative that the tone and direction for the controls of a business in respect of anti-money laundering and social responsibility are set by senior management.

’It is also important that sufficient resources are employed to ensure these controls are fully implemented, focussing efforts on the greatest areas of risk.’

Seventeen per cent of Manx Gross National Income comes from e-gaming companies.