The Maltese Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) has cautioned that an excessive number of remote gaming operators are accumulating “useless” information on specific high-risk players when conducting anti-money laundering (AML) checks.
The organization indicated that in recent years, there has been a rise in suspicious transaction reports linked to money laundering across all industries, including remote gaming, as outlined in its enforcement statement covering 2019 and 2020.
The agency observed that the gambling industry, alongside the banking sector, is a “primary contributor.” Nevertheless, this increase in suspicious activity reports is viewed as a favorable trend rather than an unfavorable one.
In 2020, the overall number of suspicious transaction reports across all sectors was 5,090, an increase from 1,668 in 2018.
The report emphasized some deficiencies in AML checks by certain remote gaming operators.
The report stated that investigations into some gaming operators revealed that they tended to gather only “worthless” details to construct customer profiles, such as simply stating that a customer is employed by a particular company.
The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) has uncovered issues with the customer verification procedures employed by certain gambling enterprises. For instance, one firm neglected to conduct supplementary checks on its patrons, despite their origin in high-risk nations and the placement of substantial wagers with unfavorable odds.
Another entity possessed a robust anti-money laundering strategy, yet failed to implement it consistently. For example, they omitted verification of players exceeding €2,000 in expenditures.
The FIAU has also compiled a list of the most prevalent breaches of anti-money laundering regulations, encompassing the gambling sector.
The most frequent transgression was the inadequate assessment of customer risk, occurring in 11.6% of instances. The second most common error was the omission of verification for individuals holding prominent government positions, occurring in 7.6% of cases. However, the FIAU refrained from disclosing the proportion of these errors linked to gambling.
