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Money laundering is one of those illicit activities that attract the most attention from law enforcement officials. The main intention of this procedure is to convert the funds raised from illegal activities to a more manageable financial instrument, alongside receiving confirmation of a legally-approved commercial operation. Unfortunately for land-based and online casino venues, money laundering is a huge issue, which happens to those gambling websites without their will or consent. In the following article, we will consider the issue of money laundering regarding casinos as well as discuss a robust anti money laundering solution. Stay tuned!
What is money laundering in casinos?
Once we found out that money laundering happens in both land-based online gambling sites, a detailed procedure of this operation should be discussed. Don’t consider this article as a guide whatsoever to converting illicit cash, though!
In terms of casino establishments, both land-based and online ones, their main vulnerability is the process of buying chips or topping up a game balance, respectively. The laundered money is either converted into a cheque after making a few transactions in a land-based venue or cashed out to a legitimate withdrawal method, such as a credit card or e-wallet.
Since there are countless casino money laundering cases that happen because of difficulties in the detection of fraudulent operations, any online casino that takes Bitcoin might be a better option. These gambling sites usually have outstanding security measures, which ultimately allow dealing with illicit currency operations. Having found out what the problem is, let’s not forget about its impact on the industry as a whole.
Why should we talk about it?
It wouldn’t be a surprise to tell that money laundering is a huge problem not only for the law enforcers but also for the gambling market. The usual money flows in casinos are huge, leading to the troubles with the detection of suspicious activities, which can be problematic for the reputation of casinos.
What else makes this issue such a problematic subject for casinos is that some of the operations related to money laundering take place without the recognition from the side of gambling venues. That means that gambling venues can be engaged in cooperation with money launders without even knowing about those crimes.
One of the most sustainable approaches to tackling those fraudulent schemes is choosing legal websites. Not only most of the UK best casinos online are licensed and audited, but they also implement a dazzling array of money laundering solution types.
What can be done to prevent money laundering through online casinos?
Having identified that casinos are susceptible to money laundering operations, another problem arises, which relies upon finding solutions. Those who are questioning is online gambling illegal should rather review the regulations of New Zealand, Australia, and, most importantly, the United Kingdom. Law enforcement in the mentioned countries incorporates three sustainable approaches towards minimization of money laundering, namely, financial monitoring, limited access, and responsible gaming laws.
We intentionally haven’t mentioned Canada because of its recent scandal with money laundering through online casino websites. What is more, even the land-based venues in British Columbia, have been the places where criminals were engaged in converting illicit cash in 2018.
It is now hard to surprise one with a fact that laundering money through casino is now a widespread phenomenon, which has to be tackled shortly. Regardless of the invented solutions, online casinos, much like their land-based counterparts, have to implement specific measures and procedures.
What are the specific regulations that might be useful?
An increase in the scale of illicit activities, especially money laundering ones, has led to fierce debates regarding the ways to tackle any unlawful gambling activity. Even though the discussions about whether a Bitcoin casino legal operations should be allowed, it is vital to remember about three letters, namely, KYC.
KYC or Know Your Customer is a framework, which requires gamblers in online venues to send personal identity confirmations, eventually allowing casinos to compile these into a single database. In case of any suspicions regarding a specific money transaction, even an online Bitcoin casino can report an instance to the law enforcement officers shortly.
Since any skeptic of enforcing anti-money laundering facilities question is gambling an economic activity at all, one is obliged to reply positively and remind of the so-called anti-money laundering (AML) tools. AML instruments comprise proper documentation, an integrated criminal detection software, and even regular assessments of systematic reports, which makes it mandatory for any online gambling website.
Another potentially helpful approach is to implement the UK-like system of a suspicion threshold. By outlining a specific amount of deposit or withdrawal, which can be the signs of money laundering, online casino representatives can manually check a specific currency operation to review potential law regulations.
Final remarks
Regardless of your knowledge about money laundering, these cases are now a shallow reality with which online casinos have to deal daily. The latest case of money laundering issues took place in the UK, where William Hill’s gambling firm named “Mr Green” was fined for £3 million for systematic failures to tackle money laundering cases. Keeping the case of William Hill in mind, not a single online gambling site would ever want to neglect proper security measures and monitoring systems.
Since money laundering will always be there just because of illicit intentions of converting cash flows, online and land-based casinos should be ready. By implementing at least one of the proposed anti-money laundering approaches, any gambling venue would be able to optimize its documentation and accounting, which are crucial for the detection of illegal operations. Let’s hope that proper regulation by gambling sites will put an end to money laundering once and forever.
