Bonnie Lysyk, the Auditor General for the province of Ontario, presented her yearly report to the provincial assembly. In it, she provides advice to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation on how to increase efforts to combat attempts to launder money at the casinos in the province. According to her analysis, the number of transactions that raise suspicion is very modest, but the quantity varies significantly between the various casino facilities.
Legal Gambling in Ontario
When it comes to playing casino games online, players have a number of different Ontario online casinos options available to them. The state lottery was the initial form of gambling to be made available on the internet. The second sort of gambling to follow suit was that of a casino-based variety in Ontario. When single sports gambling was finally made legal in the province in August of 2021, it was then that sports betting was introduced to the mix.
Report Findings
According to the study, mystery shoppers had the opportunity to test how easy it would be to launder money as part of their mission. They found that they were able to receive casino cheques with massive amounts of cash without having to confirm the source of the funds. The Auditor General expanded on the fact that the secret shoppers were unable to complete their mission successfully in two of the province casinos due to interference from security.
Ms. Lysyk did not give the identities of the properties, but she did say that one of them accurately spotted the questionable conduct and turned down the customer’s request for cheques. Even trespass orders were handed out, which prevented the customer from accessing any of the gaming sites that were run by the corporation. Other casinos, on the other hand, were not able to effectively deal with the questionable play and asked for checks.
The auditor revealed that the buyers were able to get casino cheques of well over CA$ 3,000 from two of four gaming facilities despite having played just a little amount and not providing any proof of profits. The agents began their time at the two casinos, player tables games, and slot machines with cash amounts ranging from 5,000 to 11,000 Canadian dollars, and then they cashed out their winnings using cheques.
Following the publication of the report, the Auditor General has stated that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) should develop safeguards for all casino operators in order to combat the possibility of money laundering attempts. These rules would consist of requesting customers for documentation of the funding source for buy-in when making cash transactions of 10,000 Canadian dollars or higher.
In response to the suggestions, the OLG stated that it will make additional efforts to ensure that its anti-money laundering system is compliant. In addition, The Crown acknowledged that there is a requirement to continually address money-washing threats at its brick-and-mortar facilities, and the company pledged to collaborate with casino operators to explore new cheque issuance regulations.
