Crime spree: UN report details organized crime and gambling links in Asia
Organized crime in Asia, Google’s RMG move, Danish player study +More
Casinos, crypto and crime gangs: the UN’s vice investigation in Asia.
In +More: NY DOA, Arizona open to more applications, Toney free.
Google gives the go-ahead to the downloading of RMG apps in Brazil and Mexico.
Danish players’ study shines light on unlicensed sites’ appeal.
It's not about a salary, it's all about reality.
Asian organized crime and gambling
A UN report details an “explosion” in crime related to unregulated online gambling and crypto exchanges.
Terrible, tangled web: A new report by the UN’s vice investigators has detailed a nexus of casinos, junkets and cryptocurrencies fuelling transnational organized crime across much of Asia and beyond.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) research is snappily titled ‘Casinos, Money Laundering, Underground Banking, and Transnational Organized Crime in East and Southeast Asia: A Hidden and Accelerating Threat.’
It reveals how illegal online casinos, e-junkets and cryptocurrency exchanges have proliferated in recent years alongside surging cross-border criminality throughout the region.
“Casinos and related high-cash-volume businesses have been vehicles for underground banking and money laundering for years, but the explosion of underregulated online gambling platforms and crypto exchanges has changed the game.” Jeremy Douglas, UNODC regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific
Growth of the illicit economy has been ignited by advances in cryptocurrencies, which allow for faster anonymized transactions, commingling of funds and new business opportunities for organized crime, the report found.
“The development of scalable, digitized casino- and crypto-based solutions has supercharged the criminal business environment across Southeast Asia, and particularly in the Mekong.”
Going underground: UNODC analysis estimated there were more than 340 licensed and unlicensed land-based casinos operating in Southeast Asia as of early 2022, with most having shifted online to offer live-dealer streaming and various proxy betting services.
The report indicated that after China cracked down on Macau’s junket operators, illegal casinos popped up in the gap.
A boom in third-party payment providers, e-wallets, and “other payment solutions” provided junketeers-turned-casino-operators and money launderers with the means to hide dirty money.
With software-as-a-service providers becoming widely adopted within the gambling industry “it has never been easier to set up an online casino operation with limited technical expertise and overhead capital, irrespective of gambling laws within a given jurisdiction,” the report stated.
The report “reinforces the need for US states to tighten up their iGaming rules to make sure a state online casino license isn’t a license to launder money from black markets and terror states,” said Howard Glaser, head of government affairs at Light & Wonder.
Blame it on the Tether: The criminal casinos “have emerged as among the most popular vehicles for cryptocurrency-based money launderers, particularly for those using Tether or USDT,” the report found.
Tether is a stablecoin pegged to the value of fiat currencies, most notably the dollar, and is the third-most valuable cryptocurrency with a market cap of $95bn. It has emerged as the money launderer’s vehicle of choice due to its stability, speed, low fees and anonymous nature, the UNODC said.
“Cryptocurrency regulations are way behind [the illicit activity] or practically non-existent, and organized crime groups who use and feed off vulnerabilities and weaknesses know this,” said Douglas.
Several notable industry experts said they were not surprised by the findings given the sophistication of South Asia’s crime gangs.
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New York: Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared to quickly bury the admittedly long-shot attempt to get an iCasino measure legalized when she failed to include it in her executive budget for fiscal year 2025.
The effort was only officially launched late last week by Sen. Joseph Addabbo.
The only gaming measures included in Hochul’s budget were one-year extensions for existing tax rates on pari-mutuel wagering and for OTB facilities to expend their capital funds.
Arizona: The Arizona Department of Gaming (ADG) will begin accepting new event-wagering licenses next month. The ADG will accept applications for one event-wagering license reserved for Arizona tribes and no less than one event-wagering license reserved for Arizona sports franchises. The application window will close on Mar. 4.
Kindred will host the Sustainable Gambling Conference on March 20 at the Kia Oval in London.
The Macau Horse Racing Company has agreed to cease offering horseracing from April 1, 2024.
Entain Holdings (Netherlands) BV is taking legal action against the former owners of BetCity, having bought the Dutch sportsbook in June 2022. The matter concerns a contractual dispute.
Career paths
U.S. Integrity has announced that Dave Abbott, former CTO at Sharplink Gaming, has joined the company’s leadership team as its chief product officer.
BMM Testlabs has named Luis Fuller as VP of business development. Fuller was most recently sales director at Crane Payment Innovations.
Gaming Laboratories International has promoted Ginnie Hollis to VP of engineering at its Colorado office and Samantha Powell to VP of engineering at its Adelaide, Australia, office.
Sports integrity
Ivan to break free: England soccer star Ivan Toney has said he feels “free” after his eight-month ban for betting on games ended.
Toney is now able to resume playing for his club side Brentford after the suspension for 232 breaches of the Football Association's betting rules.
He signaled his return on Wednesday morning with a Dave Chapelle-inspired social media post hailing his freedom.
Google’s download move
Google Play has given the go-ahead to downloading of real-money gaming and betting apps in Brazil and Mexico.
Paranoid android: Google has decided to allow the direct download of real-money gaming and betting apps on its Android Play Store, establishing compliance policies and initiating expansion – initially – in Brazil, Mexico and India, starting in June this year.
The company has announced its goal is to provide global opportunities to developers worldwide and plans to expand the program to another 15 countries, although it has not yet disclosed which ones.
Apps will allow players to bet and win real money in gambling games (including online casinos, lotteries, sports betting and fantasy sports) and come with built-in warnings about the risk of gambling addiction.
Details regarding fee structures, Google’s revenue share or any program-related policies have not been disclosed. But the company plans to implement a service fee model for subscriptions and in-app purchases for real-money games.
The implementation of a service fee will play a crucial role in contributing to Google Play’s revenue.
Eco-friendly: The change comes at a time when the company is under global scrutiny for its stance on allowing developers to use alternative payment methods. Google’s director of global trust and safety partnerships, Karan Gambhir, explained that, in addition to the new policy, it is also updating its real-money game service fee model to reflect the value that Google Play adds and to sustain the Android and Play ecosystems.
While many betting houses have offered mobile apps with the option to pay with real money since 2021, this could only be done by downloading the app from the betting sites in APK format, posing security risks.
From now on, however, those wishing to offer real-money games on Google Play must meet certain requirements, such as having an official and valid license in the country or region they intend to operate, complying with the local regulations of each country, implementing user-protection measures and preventing underage gambling.
For an app to be available, each developer will have to submit an online application to Google and provide clear information about responsible gaming, as well as display the ‘Adults Only’ rating.
Real-money games will be subject to a review and approval process by Google before publication.
The company revealed these measures were carefully evaluated during a one-year experimental period with daily fantasy sports and was first announced in the Android developers blog.
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Our team will be at ICE London (6-8 February). Click here to book a meeting.
Danish player study
A better offer: A new study from the Danish gambling regulator Spillemyndigheden created in collaboration with Statistics Denmark has found that unlicensed sites attract players with higher bonuses and a wider range of games.
The study found that 22% of players from a sample of over 30k of Danish citizens over the age of 15 had gambled online for money in the last year.
Of those that had gambled online, the study found just 2% had knowingly played on unlicensed sites.
That rose to 3.8% when including players who unknowingly played on unlicensed sites.
Casino is king: Of those who played on unlicensed sites, 43.4% said they played online casino. A total of 34.2% said they used the sites for skin betting.
26% said they played on these sites due to higher bonuses.
37% said they played on them because they were able to play games that are not offered by legal entities.
Discovery phase: In terms of finding unlicensed offerings, 68% said a simple online search came up with the goods, while 66% said they found the offerings via video and streaming sites such as YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat.
Underage: The study also found that 15% of 15-17 year olds have gambled online in the past year. Denmark’s legal age for gambling is 18.
Calendar
Feb 6-8: ICE, London incl. World Regulatory Briefing
Feb 13-14: 2024 FSGA Winter Conference
Mar 5-7: SBC Summit Rio
Mar 27-28: Player Protection Forum, London
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