A pioneering island-based gaming company has applied to be dissolved - just four months after it was fined almost £4m for ‘systemic’ regulatory breaches.

Celton Manx Ltd, which operated international online sports bookmaker SBOBet, was established as far back as 2008, and led the way for the island’s burgeoning e-gaming sector.

But in June this year it surrendered its licence with the Gambling Supervision Commission (GSC).

At the time, the GSC said a licence holder may surrender their licence for various reasons and it was unable to discuss individual circumstances.

But then in July the regulator issued a public statement saying that Celton Manx had been ordered to pay a discretionary civil penalty of £5,625,000, discounted by 30% to £3,937,500 due to its early co-operation with the investigation.

Now Celton Manx Ltd, based at Celton House on the Isle of Man Business Park in Braddan, has applied for a declaration of dissolution.

The Department of Enterprise said it would dissolve the company within one month of the notice, unless written objections were received.

July’s fine followed a regulatory inspection which identified a significant number of contraventions of the Gambling (Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) Code.

A range of issues were found, some of which were systemic in nature.

These included a failure to carry out an assessment of risk posed by a customer or conduct enhanced due diligence despite the clients being identified as posing a higher risk of money laundering and/or terrorist financing.

Celton Manx did not establish, record, maintain or operate sufficient controls to verify the identity of customers and was unable to demonstrate its procedures set out the action to be taken when suspicious activity was discovered.

The GSC said the fine reflected the serious nature of the non-compliance and issues and risks identified.