Australia's financial crime watchdog is setting its eyes on two of the country's biggest betting agencies.
👉 Background: AUSTRAC is the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (very edgy name). It is a government agency that aims to spot money laundering, or organised crime, or even terrorism financing.
👉 What happened: And now, AUSTRAC has appointed two external auditors to get up in the grill of two of Australia’s biggest betting agencies - Sportsbet and Bet365.
👉 What else: And that ain't it because AUSTRAC is putting the “whole industry on notice” because of concerns that certain groups may have contravened the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act.
💡 Sports betting… could soon start to look and feel like banking. Well, at least from a compliance perspective.
💡We’ve already seen the heat applied to casinos like Crown Casino and Star Casino and now sports betting agencies are also under the spotlight.
💡AUSTRAC launched an anti-money-laundering “enforcement investigation” into the owner of Ladbrokes last month and five years ago hit Tabcorp with a $45 million fine for allowing customers to facilitate dirty money through their betting accounts. Next up, Royal Commission?
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