Clubs to Adopt Digital Wallets as NSW Reveals Money Laundering Via Machines

The clubs in Australia are to adopt the digital wallet for poker machines as the regulators discovered the use of poker machines to launder dirty money. The representative of the club is investigating the use of a digital wallet for the poker machines. 

The poker machines are to be monitored by the Independent and Gaming Authorities. They are to record the activity of machines every 15 minutes. They have also discovered suspicious activities occurring through the poker machines. 

On one occasion, around $1485.79 was put into the machine and was taken out after a few minutes without any record of the bet being placed. Similarly, around $1000 were placed in the machine and without any bet, it was taken out after a few minutes. 

Casino Giant, Crown Resorts, was also discovered to be involved in the illicit financial flow, prompting the NSW regulators to declare money laundering being a significant problem plaguing casinos and clubs. 

Victor Dominello, Minister for Customer Service responsible for gaming, will have to face a budget estimate and will be pressed on the gaming reforms by the government. The poker machines are distributed across 4000 venues. These machines play a vital role to assist launderers to cleanse their illicit funds. The origin of illegally gained funds is hidden by a pattern of transfer and transactions. 

According to a gambling researcher, Charles Livingston, “There is no doubt that money laundering is endemic in NSW because there are just so many machines and clubs and people can wander from club to club and get rid of a lot of money very quickly. Usually, people place a couple of bets, so they don’t raise suspicion but that’s not always the case.”

A report investigating the Crown Resorts said that government-issued gambling cards can be a significant tool in combating money laundering and financial crimes. 

Some of the government officials are in support to introduce the cards to fight these financial crimes, however, some officials refused to give their support. 

The clubs are also not in the favour of the cards and they are looking into digital wallets to fight these crimes. ClubsNSW has also given the government its proposal of applying the use of the digital wallet. According to the proposal, there could be limits to the transaction, a limit to personal spending, and a large amount of money will be held for further investigation. 

A spokesman for ClubsNSW said: “ClubsNSW does not support a system where public servants oversee people’s gambling activities, nor do we support a mandatory card-based approach to cashless gambling. There is a range of alternatives involving a gradual introduction of venue-based digital payments worth considering, as set out in our proposal.”