The American Gaming Association (AGA) has updated its Best Practices for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Compliance resource to help combat money laundering in the gaming industry.
Reviewed and revised by the US’ top compliance professionals, the third edition of the document “builds on the gaming industry’s AML leadership and reflects new laws, technologies and indicators of criminal activity”.
Alex Costello, AGA’s Vice President of Government Relations, commented: “As the methods and sophistication of financial crimes evolve, the gaming industry continues to spearhead efforts to combat money laundering.
“An invaluable resource for our industry, this guide demonstrates gaming’s commitment to protect the US financial system from money laundering and other forms of illicit finance.”
Since the last AGA Best Practices update in 2019, Congress has made significant changes to the Bank Secrecy Act through the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, and FinCEN was granted the gaming industry federal exceptive relief for certain ID verification types.
16 additional US states have legalized sports betting and igaming, several gaming jurisdictions approved digital payments and forms of cryptocurrency, and new cybercrimes and fraudulent activity types have come to light.
To address these changes, the AGA’s Best Practices resource offers “updated guidance, expanded red flag indicators, current compliance obligations, revised definitions and other essential information for gaming companies to maintain their strong AML regimes”.
Casino gaming is recognized as an AML compliance leader. It became the first industry in 2014 to collectively establish a comprehensive set of AML compliance best practices.
In 2021, gaming filed nearly 55,000 suspicious activity reports to aid law enforcement in fighting money laundering. The AGA also represents gaming on the Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group (BSAAG), a group organized by FinCEN to cooperate with financial sector stakeholders.
Click here to view the Best Practices for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Compliance resource.
Earlier this month, the AGA published its monthly commercial gaming revenue tracker, revealing May 2022 to be the second-highest month for revenue in US commercial gaming history, with combined commercial land-based casinos, sportsbooks and igaming revenues reaching $5.1bn.
