Gambling Commission issues guidance on AML and financing terrorism 04/01/2008

Jake Pollard

The UK Gambling Commission published a guidance document on money laundering at the end of December, outlining the guidelines land-based and online casino operators should follow to prevent any possibility of money laundering or terrorism financing.

Entitled ‘The Prevention of Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism’, the document spells out the principles and responsibilities casino operators must abide by in the UK.      

The main points are that casinos must have appropriate systems and processes to forestall and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing by adopting a risk-based approach that is flexible, effective, proportionate and cost-effective and has total backing form senior management. All casinos will have to have a nominated officer who holds a personal management licence issued the Gambling Commission. Any suspicious activity will have to be reported to the relevant authorities and records of all transactions should be kept for law enforcement officers to investigate.

All nominated officers will be responsible for reporting to senior management on anti-money laundering, counter terrorism financing activity. They will have to decide whether to report internal disclosures to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and be able to act independently in carrying out their responsibilities and have sufficient resources to carry out their duties.   

Operators will have to ensure they are able to carry out further investigation should the need arise and be able to justify why no further action has been taken, dependent on individual cases.

Operators will have to provide training to all casino staff, who will have to be able to understand and implement casino policy and procedures regarding customer due diligence, record keeping and suspicious activity reports.

 The full document can be viewed by clicking on the Pdf attachment below.  

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Posted: 04/01/2008