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Australia’s financial watchdog has commenced proceedings against Entain, the global sports betting group behind local brands Ladbrokes and Neds, alleging serious and systemic non-compliance with the nation’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws.
It is the first time AUSTRAC has launched civil proceedings against any of Australia’s sports betting groups following the launch of an investigation last year.
AUSTRAC has commenced civil proceedings against the Neds owner, Entain. Credit: Getty Images
“AUSTRAC’s proceedings allege that Entain did not develop and maintain a compliant anti-money laundering program and failed to identify and assess the risks it faced. We are alleging this left the company at serious risk of criminal exploitation,” AUSTRAC chief executive Brendan Thomas said.
AUSTRAC alleges Entain’s board and senior management did not have appropriate oversight of its AML/CTF program. It said third parties, including businesses and individuals, accepted cash and other deposits on behalf of Entain to be credited into betting accounts in ways that could obscure the proceeds of crime.
The financial watchdog also alleges that Entain failed to conduct appropriate checks on 17 higher risk customers and “deliberately obscured the identity of some high-risk customers, on its own systems, through the use of pseudonyms to ‘protect their privacy’“.
“The online betting sector, and all other businesses regulated by AUSTRAC, must take their AML/CTF obligations seriously,” Thomas said. “This includes ensuring they have appropriate procedures to know who their customer is, even when they rely on third parties to process transactions.”
Entain chief executive Gavin Isaacs acknowledged the action by AUSTRAC.
“We note the allegations made, which we take extremely seriously,” he said.
“We have co-operated fully with AUSTRAC throughout its investigation, and we are implementing further enhancements to Entain Australia’s AML and CTF compliance arrangements. Whilst we still have some further improvements to make, we expect these to be implemented in line with the plan we communicated to AUSTRAC in 2023.