Bigger Penalties for Breaking the Money Laundering Act

Spelinspektionen is petitioning for an increase in maximum penalty that a gambling operator needs to pay for violating the Money Laundering Act. The amount that is required from the operators to pay for the penalty is supposed to be changed from €1m to 10% of the business revenue.

The gambling regulator states that most of the active Swedish operators have an extremely large revenue and that the fine of €1m will not make much of a difference for those companies. While changing the fine to be 10% from their total revenue, this is a more reasonable amount that could put an end to larger operators trying to launder money.

Creating a penalty of 10% of gaming revenue will be the same as the maximum penalty for violating the Gaming Act as well.

This is why, Spelinspektionen is asking Ministry of Finance to step up and put an end to this illegal act. They are also hoping that, if the maximum penalty is changed, money laundering will slowly disappear.

Hoping for Success

Representatives are trying their best to make companies follow the Money Laundering Act. There are many ways that larger operators can launder money very quickly and they are working on creating fines that will keep companies from making bad decisions.

“The gaming sector can be attractive for trying to launder money, for example through access to gaming s and that large sums of money can be traded very quickly,” Spelinspektionen said. “Therefore, it is important to create good incentives for the gaming companies to follow the Money Laundering Act, where tangible and dissuasive penalties for companies that do not follow the rules are an important part.”

Spelinspektionen were forced to cancel the operating license of Global Gaming in June due to some evidence of money laundering. Global Gaming, being one of the biggest online gambling operators, famous for operating brands such as Ninja Casino and Spellandet.com.

The gambling regulator has established a new system for licensed operators making it easier for them to report any type of terrorist financing or if they assume any existence of money laundering. This new system was presented in October and it is expected to be released on January 13th.

The regulator revealed that 20 of the 21 fines issued had not been paid. They are saying that gambling operators are just not very much used to Spelinspektionen’s way of issuing law and order. They are hoping that this new change brings more order to the market.

Source:

“Spelinspektionen calls for higher maximum money laundering fines”, igamingbusiness.com, January 2, 2020.