New Report Says Lithuanian Online Casinos, Bookmakers and Offline Venues are at Risk of Money Laundering

A new report by the analysts revealed that Lithuanian online casinos, bookmakers and offline venues are at the risk of money laundering.

According to analysts, the risk of money laundering for land-based casinos in Lithuania on a scale of 1 to 4 is estimated at 4, for lotteries – at 2, and for the online gaming, slot machine simulators, online betting – at 3.

The casino sector is at risk because its operations are based on a significant amount of cash flows that are attractive to organised crime groups, politically significant persons and people arriving from high-risk countries for money laundering, the report says.

The online gambling industry is attractive to criminals due to the high volume and fast execution of transactions, as well as low identification requirements, which allows them to easily convert illegal funds into legitimate gambling earning.

The report also indicates that the gambling supervisory authority in the country is not sufficiently prepared to deal with the threat of money laundering in casinos.

“The number of investigations conducted by supervisors during 2016-2018 is insufficient and not proportional to risk. This may be due to a lack of human resources in the department, in which three employees devote only 15% of their time to supervision of money laundering issues.”

The report proposes casinos, slot machines and bookmakers to introduce debit cards to easily track the transactions, set limits on cash deposits, use customer cards to control gaming activity, and conduct checks in the style of a “mystery shopper” by the supervisor.