Identifying changes in the Gambling Commission’s updated AML/CTF Guidance for casino operators

On Friday 10 January 2020 – the same day that changes to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requirements, introduced by the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2019, came into force – we reported on our website that the Gambling Commission had published an updated 5th edition of its AML/CTF guidance for UK licensed remote and non-remote casinos – “The prevention of money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism”.

You can read (both in our report and in the Gambling Commission’s own website posting) the Commission’s summary of the main changes to the Money Laundering Regulations that have been incorporated into the 5th edition of that guidance.

However, that summary does not particularise the changes that the Commission has made to its guidance, notwithstanding that all UK licensed casino operators must act “promptly”, invest “appropriately (if technology is required to accommodate the changes)” and implement changes “with the requisite urgency”, including by way of updating their ML/TF risk assessments and AML/CTF policies, procedures and controls.

To assist clients and others in the industry, we have therefore marked up a copy of the Commission’s guidance – that can be downloaded below – showing precisely (highlighted in yellow) where we have identified changes to the following parts of the guidance:

  • Para 2.8: Risk-based approach – Introduction
  • Para 2.39: Risk-based approach – Dynamic risk management: new products & business practices
  • Para 4.11: Senior management responsibility – Policies, procedures and controls: new products & business practices
  • Paras 4.26 & 4.27: Training of agents used for AML/CTF related purposes
  • Para 5.2: Nominated Officer: sufficiency of oversight across all licensed entities
  • Para 6.1: Customer due diligence – Introduction
  • Paras 6.2 – 6.7: Customer due diligence – Risk-based customer due diligence and risk-profiling
  • Para 6.17: Customer due diligence – Customer due diligence measures: information obtained from a reliable source independent of the person whose identity is being verified
  • Paras 6.29, 6.30, 6.31 & 6.33: Customer due diligence – Enhanced customer due diligence and enhanced ongoing monitoring: (a) High-risk third countries, (b) Complex or large transactions and transactions that have an unusual pattern or no apparent economic or legal purpose and (c) Additional factors to take into account in high-risk ML/TF situations
  • Figure 2: New additional diagram – “Architecture for the risk-based process”
  • Figure 3: New additional diagram – “The risk framework and risk-based customer due diligence”
  • Figure 11: Amended diagram – “Defence under POCA or Terrorism Act”

In addition:

  • paras 1.13 and 1.14 from the previous edition of the guidance (referring to the EU and the EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive) have been removed and
  • reference to the “Betting & Gaming Council” has been substituted in paras 4.8, 4.15, 4.19 and 4.28 in place of “National Casino Forum” and “Remote Gambling Association”.

As mentioned in our previous website posting, anyone requiring advice on updating their money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessments and policies, procedures and controls is invited to contact us.