GIMO are leading the way when it comes to anti-money laundering strategies and we exclusively chat to Raymond Wilson, AML manager at GIMO following his appearance at Betting On Sport Europe to talk in detail about the subject.

What are the latest AML risks?
“From a more generic perspective the biggest change has come through the ease of digital products and the expertise of criminals using these improving. Fraudsters now have access to more data about us than ever before and as e-commerce grows, the exploitation of the data we feed into the internet does too.
“In terms of the remote gambling industry I believe whilst not new, we could see an increased AML/CTF risk for peer to peer gaming products as this could be exploited by professional money launderers who would have typically used land-based operators to chip dump or smurf criminal proceeds through the sector.”

What are some key factors that would affect AML/CTF compliance?
“The general lack of consistency across operators in regards to both AML/CTF has and will continue to be one of, if not, the biggest factor affecting AML compliance. I believe that too many operators still chose to proceed with what they likely know are weak areas in their AML/CTF compliance until they are personally inspected and told otherwise by the regulator. Additionally, staff training, awareness and appreciation of AML beyond it simply being a regulatory or legislative requirement could be the key to a shift in the positive direction for AML compliance. All staff knowing correct procedures and high risk ML/TF behaviours is good but an appreciation of the positive societal impact that one can have through this will be the game changer.”

What does the future look like for AML within iGaming?
“One thing we know for sure is that criminals are always looking for new ways to perpetrate crime and Financial Crime is no different. In fact financial gain forms the basis of nearly every predicate offence.
“I believe the future will go one of two ways when it comes to AML/CTF in the remote gambling sector. There will either be further regulation of operators if there is a continuation of AML/CTF failings or a complete shift to collaborative working, where operators work within one another to identify and mitigate ML/TF risk player by player. We are already beginning to see this with the embracing of the affordability process and introduction of open banking into the sector. I strongly hope for the latter.”