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Beating the bad guys
Could Bingo fund bomb-making? The online gaming sector may seem far removed from the global threat of terrorism, but the Remote Gambling Association – a London-based industry body – is sufficiently worried about the spectre of Internet gaming being used for money-laundering that it's issued a set of practical guidelines aimed at operators.
The 22-page document covers issues like reporting of suspicious transactions, record-keeping, and employee training and screening. Much of it is aimed particularly at operators in the EU, but the RGA believes it will be applicable worldwide. And “we also hope that [the guidelines] might be useful to other stakeholders, such as newer regulators, who need to know what might reasonably be expected of the companies they regulate,” said RGA Chief Executive Clive Hawkswood.
Just informing the sector about what it can do to combat dubious transactions may not be enough, however. The guidelines come in the wake of a report prepared last year for the organisation by financial-crime specialist MHA Consulting on two distinct threats faced by the online gaming sector: money-laundering in general, and the financing of terrorism in particular.
And MHA cautioned in its report that although “there appears to be a strong commitment across the industry to prevent and detect money-laundering and terrorist financing”, it was also true that “application of industry standards and regulations that had been designed primarily for the heavily regulated and significantly vulnerable financial sector has provided a significant challenge”.
Besides, it said, although most online operators already monitored customers and transactions to prevent under-age gaming, problem gambling and fraud, there was wriggle room for those that sought it.
“As the regulations start to bite, this could provide a temptation for some less scrupulous operators outside of the EU to locate themselves in the least-well-regulated centres,” warned MHA.
The possible solution: common standards from the International Association of Gaming Regulators to plug those loopholes.
