News
Payment Processors, Data Security Pros Back Measures to License Online Gambling
By Brian Monroe
printRegulating online gambling operations will cut down on abuses by criminals seeking to use such sites to launder funds and finance their operations, opponents of a ban on Internet betting said Friday at a U.S. congressional hearing. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, online payment processors, data security professionals and other experts called for the licensing of Internet gambling businesses but could not agree on whether current technology can successfully verify the identity, age and geography of online betters. A law enacted last October forbids banks and other financial institutions from knowingly accepting funds – credit cards, electronic...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
The U.S. gaming sector's string of recent compliance penalties have prompted many casinos to rethink how they implement anti-money laundering controls, according to Kim McCabe, founder of Henderson, NV-based consultancy KMC, LLC.
The U.K. Gambling Commission may have called on firms last month to improve their anti-money laundering controls, but the concerns over how best to do that are not new to the nation's gaming sector.
Nevada state regulators will levy a monetary penalty and set conditions on Caesars Entertainment's gaming license as part of an anti-money laundering settlement, according to an individual with knowledge of the plan.
A Northern Mariana Islands casino will forfeit approximately $3 million to the U.S. Justice Department under the terms of a deal reached Thursday that will spare the gambling operation criminal charges.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed a $75 million fine Wednesday against a casino in the Northern Mariana Islands, less than a year after banning its former VIP services manager over related infractions.
The introduction of new merchant codes to identify legal online wagers has spurred a handful of U.S. banks to reconsider the compliance risks of processing payments for the online gaming industry, according to sources.
A bankruptcy court cleared the way Wednesday for a $10 million fine against Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort for poor compliance with recordkeeping and reporting rules, the U.S. Treasury Department said.
Ahead of the issuance of expected federal guidance, a top lobbying group for America's casinos Thursday outlined how the gaming industry should best shield itself from money launderers.
Federal officials are investigating four of Nevada's most well-known casinos for potential violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, according to sources familiar with the matter and a regulatory disclosure published Monday.
An agreement between a global online gaming company and an Atlantic City casino to offer Internet wagering in New Jersey faces an uphill battle to gain the necessary approval from state regulators, say analysts.
Since the 2011 indictment by the U.S. Justice Department of some of the most prominent online gambling sites in the world, the financial risks posed by Internet betting have changed, believes Christine Duhaime, barrister and solicitor at Vancouver-based Duhaime Law.
Undercover investigators, acting as a phony payment processor, used U.S. bank accounts to see how offshore gambling operations transacted more than $30 million with their American clients, according to federal prosecutors.
The U.S. Justice Department is seeking $3 billion in forfeitures and fines from three of the largest online gambling businesses and the financial institutions and individuals that helped to process bets.
Finding themselves locked out of some large U.S. banks because of compliance concerns, third-party payment processors are increasingly turning to small- and mid-sized institutions for financial services, say consultants.
A Canadian national laundered nearly $380 million and illegally processed payouts from online gambling companies to their U.S.-based customers, according to a federal indictment released Thursday. The indictment seeks more than half-billion dollars in forfeitures.
A federal warning about the compliance risks of payment processors tied to telemarketers will mean closer scrutiny of the companies but not a wholesale dropping of the accounts, say consultants.
The U.S. House Committee on Financial Services voted down a bill Wednesday that would have reversed a federal ban on processing Internet gambling payments. The bill would have stopped regulations issued by the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department in October.
The United States should consider strictly controlling, rather than banning, betting over the Internet, as is done in the United Kingdom, gambling experts and some lawmakers say.
Federal law prohibits banks and other financial institutions from "knowingly" accepting funds from Internet gambling operations. But the law is not clear about what constitutes knowingly accepting funds, observers say.
If online payments system e-gold, Ltd. is convicted on charges of operating as an unlicensed money services business and other crimes, significant changes could be in store for similar digital currency businesses and the banks that service them.