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Exclusive: Figure of 633 UK operators reporting suspicious activity involves more than just betting shops, UKGC says

The

UKGC
633 suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed to the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) by UK operators between April 2014 and March 2015 includes those reported by racetracks and not just betting shops, Gambling Insider has learned.

UKGC released a response to a Freedom of Information request in December, asking for the number of unique reference numbers given to bookmakers when replying to SARs submitted to UKGC by non-remote betting operators in the said time period.

The number of SARs reported through regulatory returns were revealed by UKGC as being 633 from the non-remote betting sector for that period and 1237 for all sectors between August 2014 and March 2015, with August 2014 being the time when a requirement to report SARs to UKGC was first enforced.

UKGC has confirmed to Gambling Insider that the number of non-remote betting sector SARs is inclusive of SARs reported by racetracks, but was not able to give information on specific numbers reported by betting shops and racetracks or whether the figure of 633 is inclusive of greyhound tracks and horseracing tracks individually or collectively, before the publishing of this article.

Why is this relevant?

This could provoke questions as to what types of suspicious activity were reported, as the obvious answer to some seemed to be that fixed-odds betting terminals in betting shops must be the source of blame. FOBTs and possibly drug-money laundering could still at least partially be at the source of the suspicions, but it adds a new element of information that was not known previously.

Details

Specific details of the SARs are not something that UKGC is able to provide, as we were informed that that information is held by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

We contacted the NCA, which said it only releases information on the content of SARs in its annual reports, with its last annual report showing the number of SARs filed by industry operators for the period between October 2014 and September 2015 was 2,459, with bookmakers accounting for 21% (520) of that total.

SARs submitted collectively by all sectors for the period totalled 381,882 reports, a majority of which were reported by banks (318,445).

Even that report does not provide information about what the SARs submitted by gambling operators entailed, but a summary of the overall report said that “the information contained within SARs alert law enforcement domestically and internationally to potential money laundering or terrorist financing”.

James Cook, corporate affairs officer for UKGC, told Gambling Insider: “We recognise the money-laundering risk associated with transferring FOBT winnings onto debit cards or to online accounts, particularly when this wasn’t the source of funds for the stake. This issue was also recently consulted on as part of the changes to the licence conditions and codes of practice in the context of crime, including best ways to mitigate the risk. A response to this will be published in the coming months.”

Cook was contributing to a wider article about UK bookmakers potentially being used in money-laundering schemes, which will appear in the May/June 2015 issue of Gambling Insider. You can sign up for a free subscription here.
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