Parent company of former Polder Casino pays £900,000 following UK investigation 

An 18-year-old lost £4,000 in eight minutes. Another player made 84 failed deposit attempts in a single week due to insufficient funds, without the system identifying potential gambling harm. Meanwhile, customers faced unnecessary delays when withdrawing their money. These issues are at the centre of the UK investigation into L&L Europe, the company behind the former Polder Casino. 

L&L Europe is paying £900,000 as part of a settlement with the UK Gambling Commission. The regulator identified shortcomings in withdrawal procedures, anti-money laundering controls and player protection. The violations occurred between October 2024 and October 2025. 

The company operates seven websites as part of its UK business, including All British Casino, CasinoCasino and HyperCasino. For Dutch readers, the company’s history with Polder Casino may be particularly familiar. For Belgium, however, the case raises a broader question: when do checks protect players, and when do they become unnecessary obstacles to withdrawing money? 

A settlement, not a formally imposed fine 

The Gambling Commission announced the regulatory action on October 21, 2026. According to the official announcement concerning the settlement with L&L Europe, the company will pay £900,000 as part of a regulatory settlement. 

This distinction matters. The payment is made in lieu of a financial penalty. L&L Europe will also make a separate contribution towards the regulator’s investigation costs. This is therefore neither a criminal court judgment nor an announced refund scheme for all affected players. 

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) considers the failings serious. However, it also took into account the company’s cooperation, its early acceptance of the findings and the measures introduced to address the problems. 

The settlement therefore describes both what went wrong and how the company responded. The improvements do not erase the earlier shortcomings, but they were taken into consideration when resolving the investigation. 

Polder Casino’s history in the Netherlands 

L&L Europe is known in the Netherlands as the company behind brands including Polder Casino and Fortuin Casino. These brands operated before the regulated Dutch online gambling market opened on October 1, 2021. Their earlier activities should therefore not be presented as services offered under a Dutch online gambling licence. 

The company wanted to return under the new licensing system and submitted an application. That application was rejected. According to earlier reports, the Dutch Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit) also successfully defended its refusal in court. 

The UK settlement is a separate matter. It concerns compliance with British regulatory obligations between October 2024 and October 2025. Without additional findings, it cannot be claimed that these shortcomings were the reason for the earlier Dutch rejection. 

The historical name also requires clarification. The current investigation concerns L&L Europe’s UK operations. It is not an investigation into recent Dutch players of Polder Casino, nor is it a sanction imposed by the Belgian Gaming Commission. 

Players could only request one withdrawal at a time 

One of the most striking findings concerns withdrawal conditions. Customers were only allowed to submit one withdrawal request at a time. They could not submit another request until the previous withdrawal had been approved. 

According to the Gambling Commission, this condition was unfair under the UK’s Consumer Rights Act 2015. The regulator also found that withdrawals were being withheld for reasons unrelated to legal or regulatory obligations. 

For players, this is an important distinction. A necessary verification check may explain why a withdrawal has not yet been processed. A standard condition that blocks every subsequent request is different from a specific assessment of an individual risk. 

L&L Europe changed its procedures. The UKGC acknowledged that the company acted quickly to address this shortcoming. Nevertheless, the central concern remains that the previous procedures caused customers to wait unnecessarily for their money. 

Additional documents were requested too late 

Alongside the restriction on simultaneous withdrawal requests, L&L Europe operated a procedure under which every fifth or tenth withdrawal for certain customers was manually reviewed. Additional information could be requested before the funds were released. 

The problem was not that manual reviews were inherently prohibited. However, UK regulations do not allow operators to make withdrawals conditional on information they could reasonably have collected earlier. 

According to the Gambling Commission’s detailed public statement on the investigation, L&L Europe acknowledged that this process delayed withdrawals. The company also accepted that certain information could have been requested earlier in the customer relationship. 

The operator subsequently revised its procedure. According to the statement, withdrawals are no longer withheld unless there is a legal or regulatory obligation to do so. This does not mean that all checks have been removed, but rather that their purpose and timing must be justified. 

Anti-money laundering controls relied too heavily on financial thresholds 

The regulator also identified shortcomings in measures designed to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. Checks relied too heavily on financial thresholds and sampling, with insufficient attention paid to individual customer risk profiles. 

Furthermore, the company had not clearly established how it assessed whether high levels of spending were disproportionate to a customer’s income or wealth. Simply identifying that someone is spending large amounts is not a complete risk assessment. 

One example involved a customer who deposited £4,400 within eight hours of registering. The bank account used had been opened just two weeks earlier. L&L Europe accepted a gambling account as an explanation for the source of the funds without sufficiently establishing whether the money originally came from wages, business income or savings. 

When the same customer contacted the company about a withheld withdrawal, they provided an incorrect address on two occasions. According to the UKGC, this also failed to raise suspicion. These findings concern inadequate checks; they do not, in themselves, establish that the customer was actually involved in money laundering. 

84 failed deposits triggered no warning 

The player protection shortcomings are equally concrete. L&L Europe had indicators relating to playing time, failed deposits and the number of deposits made. However, these were not consistently active across all its websites. 

One customer made 84 unsuccessful deposit attempts within seven days because of insufficient funds. Despite this, the system failed to identify a potential risk of gambling harm. This example shows why looking only at the value of successful deposits can provide an incomplete picture. 

In another case, customer contact took place too late. A player reached a financial threshold that should have triggered a telephone conversation within 24 hours of registering. However, the call did not take place until two weeks later. 

During that period, the same threshold had been reached several more times. The problem therefore went beyond recognising warning signs. The company also failed to follow its own procedures effectively. 

Young players lost large amounts in a short time 

The UKGC describes two cases involving players under the age of 25. A 21-year-old lost £6,500 within three days of opening an account. An 18-year-old lost £4,000 in just eight minutes. 

According to the regulator, their ages and other risk indicators were not adequately taken into account or acted upon. These findings demonstrate why player protection cannot rely exclusively on a single financial threshold applied equally to all customers. 

For Belgium, the comparison is relevant, but the regulations are not identical. These British cases should not be presented as though the young players involved would automatically have had access to the same gambling services in Belgium. 

Belgium uses measures including access checks through EPIS. Gambling Club explains how this protection works in its article about Belgium’s EPIS exclusion register and gambling restrictions. Controlling access and identifying risky behaviour during gambling are two distinct elements of player protection. 

A prevention policy must also demonstrate that it works 

The Gambling Commission did not only identify problems involving individual customers. L&L Europe was also unable to adequately demonstrate that it evaluated the effectiveness of its overall approach to customer interactions. 

According to the regulator, some manual assessments were extremely brief. They did not explain what impact an earlier intervention had on the player’s subsequent behaviour. Simply contacting a customer is not proof that the risk has decreased. 

This issue has also appeared in previous enforcement cases. For example, Gambling Club reported on UK regulatory shortcomings involving Greentube in relation to anti-money laundering and player protection. That case is separate from L&L Europe, but it provides context for the recurring focus on whether policies are effectively implemented. 

Policy documents, warning systems and customer support teams must work together. If indicators are not active everywhere or employees fail to act in time, protection exists largely on paper. 

Supporting prevention tools does not replace responsible business practices 

L&L Europe also has another connection to player protection. The company previously supported the Dutch translation of BetBlocker, a tool that allows users to restrict access to gambling websites. 

Gambling Club covered that involvement in its article about BetBlocker and additional protection against online gambling. This support is relevant background information, but it does not address the shortcomings now identified by the British regulator. 

An external prevention tool and a casino’s day-to-day responsibilities serve different purposes. The former helps users restrict access to gambling websites. The latter requires operators to identify warning signs, respond appropriately and treat customers fairly. 

It is precisely this day-to-day implementation that lies at the heart of the settlement. The case concerns what happened following a failed deposit, a rapid series of losses, an incorrect address or a request to withdraw money. 

The lesson for Belgium: checks must be targeted and justified 

The case demonstrates that strict controls and fair treatment should reinforce one another. Asking relevant questions about risks at an early stage may be necessary. Requesting information without good reason only when someone wants to withdraw money, however, can create unnecessary delays. 

For Belgian readers, the distinction between foreign and local licences also remains important. A British licence does not constitute Belgian authorisation. Our explanation of the difference between legal and illegal gambling operators in Belgium provides the necessary background. 

The British findings do not prove that Belgian casinos have committed similar violations. However, they highlight specific areas requiring attention across the industry: appropriate risk assessments, timely follow-up and withdrawal conditions that do not create unnecessary obstacles. 

L&L Europe has acknowledged its shortcomings and revised its procedures. The significance of those improvements will depend on how they are implemented in practice: asking relevant questions earlier, responding more quickly to warning signs and allowing customers to access their money once there is no longer a valid reason to withhold a withdrawal.