American Gaming Association Looks to Prevent Money Laundering; Policies Considered

The United Sates has made a lot of effort to prevent money laundering in casinos all over the states. Despite harsh legal instruments regarding gambling, it has still to struggle with illegal activity. One of the most recent cases with the same issue comes from the Hawaiian Gardens card room in California which needs to pay $3.1-million fine for failing to control the activity and other gambling incidents on the state level. The American Gaming Association (AGA) is looking to prevent these problems and update guidelines that will eliminate money laundering and provide more responsibly behavior of gambling operators, regarding anti-money-laundering (AML) activity.

Previous Attempts

It is not the first time that AGA looks for more efficient gambling regulation. Five years ago, the Association created policies called the “best practices” in the gambling sector, intended to prevent money laundering issues. This instrument has been updated in a new “Best Practices for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Compliance” directive. The updates have been made having into consideration guidelines of Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) part of the U.S. Treasury Department, Office of Foreign Assets Control and the National Money Laundering Risk Assessment.

AGA Role

The American Gaming Association doesn’t have legal governance over the casino sector and its policies cannot be called laws or regulations. AGA is a lobby group which initiates useful changes in the gambling sector across the states. According to the group’s statement:

“AML programs are risk-based, and casinos have different risk profiles, so individual casinos will have good reasons for departing from or modifying a procedure in this document, or for developing supplemental or alternative procedures, including appropriate approvals and documentation of decision-making.”

After the serious efforts for the legal gambling environment, both the US and Canada are close to getting digital casino operations rather than cash-enabled transactions. It will reduce the amount of cash which goes through casinos and prevent serious malversations.

AGA president Bill Miller said:

“We can give law enforcement and regulators new tools to more easily identify customer backgrounds, the source of money being gambled, and early warning signs of potential criminal activity,”

Casinos Efforts

Despite strict regulations, casino operators should take additional steps in preventing money laundering scandals. Pursuant to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), any casino operator that earns over $1 million in GGR has to submit currency transaction reports (CTR) for transaction worth $10,000 (or higher) in a 24-hour timeframe. Additionally, operators should submit “Suspicious Activity Reports” (SAR) in case of avoiding BSA controls.

However, casinos don’t adhere to the previously mentioned practices. Washington located Macau Casino LLC has just been ordered to compensate $1.25 million after it was revealed that a dealer was enabling money-laundering activity. Everything has been done with the knowledge of the General Manager.

Source:

“American Gaming Association hopes policies will thwart money laundering“, Erik Gibbs, calvinayre.com, December 10, 2019.