A report is released to explain the anti money laundering techniques used in Canada
Regulators have strong measures in place in order to prevent money laundering through casinos and gambling services. Casinos are the number one method that people will use in order to hide their income and savings from the government to avoid paying taxes or other federal purposes. Anti money laundering expert Christine Duhaime released a report citing that she believes the current safeguards put in place in Canada to be very secure in preventing money laundering and deter fraud.
The report is titled “Casinos and Money Laundering” which was drafted for the Gaming Security Professionals of Canada. It creates an outline of all the techniques and various technologies used in the industry to fight back against fraud and money laundering. Casinos, both land based and online casinos, are required to follow proper procedures in order to stay in line with federal regulations. If they fail to do so, they risk losing their operating license which makes it vital for any casino owner to ensure that their service is being compliant.
For starters, every transaction that occurs in the casino gets recorded. Casinos use video surveillance equipment so that authorities can use it to identify people that are making exchanges at certain times if necessary. Online casinos will record all user information whenever a transaction is processed. This makes casinos one of the riskiest places to try and launder money, rather than leaving them open to fraudulent activity. It takes away the anonymity that makes these types of services such a high risk for government officials that have to ensure that all transferred funds are accounted for.
With online casinos players can lie about their information of course, but they are required to prove their identity before being allowed to pull out their winnings. If they used a debit or credit card, they will need to verify that they are the owner of the card and their name matches up with the name on the card. Without this information the casino will prevent them from taking out anything from the casino. Identity based transaction recording is the most effective prevention method out there.
To this day there have been no findings that someone has used a Canadian casino in order to pull off some major money laundering scheme. This goes to show that either criminals are deterred from using casinos due to the strict policies in Canada, or the policies themselves are just very effective at being able to prevent laundering techniques from being successful.
There are enough checks and balances to safely regulate gambling in Canada. The success of these measures opens up more potential for regulators to keep the gambling market open, unlike in places like the United States where it is heavily restricted and banned in many states. Many of the procedures follows with how the United Kingdom Gambling Commission runs their own gambling industry, and these two jurisdictions are able to implement policies that have proven effective in other regions.
