Key points:
- Thomas highlights the vulnerability of the gambling industry to criminal money laundering activities
- While acknowledging challenges to the industry, he reiterates the industry’s responsibility in tackling crime
- Thomas also provides details of recent legal and regulatory action taken by AUSTRAC
AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas presents on the current state of affairs in Australian casino compliance and preventing gambling businesses from being exploited by criminals on the third day of Regulating the Game 2025 Sydney.
Indeed, Thomas opens with statistics highlighting that serious and organised crime costs Australia AU$68bn (US$42.74bn) a year. Further, Australia’s illicit drug market has an estimated value of AU$12.6bn per year – while tax fraud is estimated to range from between AU$1.8bn - AU$6.3bn per year.
As stated by Thomas, all of this money must then, one way or another, be laundered through the nation’s economy every year. Thomas went on to further explain that Australia is particularly attractive as a location for foreign money laundering syndicates to launder the proceeds of international crime – including professional international money laundering companies.
Resilience against these syndicates relies on businesses being diligent in reporting suspicious activity and keeping close customer monitoring processes is strongly emphasised by Thomas throughout his presentation. However, he also acknowledges the challenges facing the gambling industry – citing growing currency digitization, increasingly complex financial systems, a growing number of online competitors and the requirement for enhanced player verification checks as key industry obstacles.
He states that, despite this, companies must find a way to fill in the gaps in their respective systems because – if they don’t – they will be filled by criminal activity.
Further, Thomas reiterated that the funds that run illegally through the gambling industry can come from crimes of extremely severe nature and – if not caught out – will lead to the re-investment of those ill-gained profits into more crime. His point seeks to exemplify that gambling businesses in Australia yield a large chunk of the responsibility in combating crimes such as human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, drug running and beyond – as it is the most common place for criminals to try and clean their money.
Good to know: AUSTRAC’s national risk assessment 2024 highlighted the casinos as a high-risk money laundering area
Indeed, one of the most recent high-profile announcements from AUSTRAC came in December, when it was announced the regulator would pursue civil penalty proceedings against Entain for alleged AML/CTF breaches. Interestingly, Thomas doesn’t shy away from the facts, stating: “There has been recent strong action taken against gambling companies where the risk has been large, and the responsibility has been negligent. We’ve had successful court proceedings against Crown’s casinos and SkyCity – and legal action is currently underway against Star and Entain.”
Further, Thomas went on to provide details of recent enforcement action, highlighting key failures from Boards of multiple companies that adopted a “tick and flick” approach to AML initiatives. Underlining AUSTRAC’s action against Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth – Thomas unveils that the operator continued a business relationship with a major casino junket operator until 2021 despite being aware that there were allegations against it for connections to organised crime, as well as allowing exclusive control of a private casino room to the junket and failing to appropriately monitor billions-of-dollars of transactions. However, he also notes that diligent efforts have been made to address these issues at Crown, which is now a member of AUSTRAC’s public-private partnership.
Closing out the presentation, Thomas states that the industry must work together to protect its own community and reputation in the Australian nation.
