Rank Group will pay more than £5 million following a UK Gambling Commission investigation that uncovered anti-money laundering and safer gambling failures across its Grosvenor Casinos business.
The regulatory action covers Grosvenor Casinos Limited, Grosvenor Casinos (GC) Limited and Gaming Group Limited, which together operate 51 casinos across Great Britain. The companies will also be subject to an independent third-party audit assessing whether their AML and safer gambling policies, procedures and controls are being implemented effectively.
The settlement requires a payment of £5,012,261 in lieu of a financial penalty. The full amount will be directed to the UK Government’s Consolidated Fund.
The investigation followed a licence review and information submitted to the Commission through key event notifications. Further intelligence subsequently led the regulator to conduct a targeted compliance assessment at one Grosvenor venue on 13 June 2025.
AML Controls Found to Be Inadequate
The Commission identified multiple weaknesses in Grosvenor’s approach to preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.
Policies had not been properly updated to reflect changes introduced to the Money Laundering Regulations in 2020. The regulator found that this contributed to customers being assigned inappropriate risk classifications.
Grosvenor’s procedures also gave venue management discretion over some compliance decisions. Although the Commission did not consider local decision-making inherently problematic, it found cases where source-of-funds or source-of-wealth evidence should have been collected and scrutinised more closely.
Cryptocurrency was another area of concern. Grosvenor’s procedures focused on confirming that crypto assets had been converted into fiat currency through an appropriate bank account but did not always provide sufficient scrutiny of the original source or legitimacy of those assets.
Records reviewed by the regulator included cryptocurrency users and a student from China who remained classified at standard risk despite Grosvenor’s own policies requiring higher risk treatment and enhanced due diligence.
In another case, a customer returning after a lengthy absence lost about £200,000 over two visits without adequate photographic identification or recorded evidence of income. A separate cash customer recycled around £85,000 through a venue over roughly 11 weeks before enhanced checks were adequately applied.
Safer Gambling Interventions Were Delayed
The investigation also found significant shortcomings in how Grosvenor identified and responded to potential gambling harm.
One long-standing customer won approximately £260,000 before losing around £250,000 over 12 days, with no safer gambling interactions recorded during that period. Another established customer lost roughly £50,000 without an appropriate intervention.
The Commission also identified a case involving a customer gambling with winnings obtained from another operator. The individual was allowed to lose about £25,000 before safer gambling measures were initiated. Despite further interactions relating to the frequency and duration of play, stronger restrictions were not imposed until later.
Customers returning after periods of self-exclusion were among those highlighted by the investigation, with the regulator finding that some were permitted to gamble substantial amounts before adequate controls were applied.
The Commission concluded that Grosvenor had not consistently assessed whether previous customer interactions were effective and had sometimes repeated the same level of intervention despite continued signs of risky behaviour.
Rank Had Already Provided for the Settlement
Rank had previously disclosed the expected regulatory outcome in its financial reporting. The group submitted a £5 million settlement proposal to the Gambling Commission on 20 May 2026 after receiving preliminary findings from the regulator.
Its 2025/26 full-year results included a £5 million provision for the case, meaning the final settlement had already been accounted for financially.
The review concerned historical compliance issues during the period from 1 November 2024 to 1 May 2025. Rank said remedial measures had been substantially implemented during the first half of its 2025/26 financial year and that it continued to cooperate with the regulator.
The Gambling Commission said the case demonstrated that major AML and customer-protection risks are not limited to online gambling businesses and urged other land-based operators to review their own systems against the failings identified at Grosvenor.