The rise of illegal casinos in the UK has increased the risk of money laundering from low to medium, according to a new report.
The UK governments’ ‘2025 National Risk Assessment of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing’ report found the risk increased from 2020 to 2025 due to a shift in player habits, with Covid playing a role in customers moving from land-based casinos to online.
However, the risk of terrorist financing remained low.
From the last assessment, the number of land-based casino licences has increased from 210 in 2020 to 247 in 2024, with the Gambling Commission finding 97 of the licences posing a higher risk.
The risk assessment found that the risk in the casino industry increased from low to medium on the back of changes in customer, geographical and transaction risks with more money moving through online casinos – as well as new ways to play casino games.
The assessment added that the most common occurrences of money laundering in the casino sector came from the spending of criminal property and criminals trying to “clean” money through casinos.
It also found an increase in illegal online casinos targeting UK players, with criminals potentially running the businesses to launder their funds.
According to the study, the gambling industry remains vulnerable to “financial flows from higher risk payment methods” such as money services business (MSB).
Though the number of land-based casinos offering MSB services has declined in the last five years, the method attracts higher risk due to transactional methods including foreign currency exchange and third-party cheque cashing facilities in “higher risk geographical locations”.
The attraction of domestic and international players at land-based casinos increases the risk of money laundering, as does the use of white-label partnerships by online casinos.
The assessment stated: “These arrangements are now less common, but risks remain where white-label providers offer large numbers of websites, as failure by a single remote casino to control the [money laundering] risks relating to their white-label partnerships can impact a significant number of websites.”
Peer-to-peer online poker carries a high money laundering and terrorist financing risk due to potentially allowing for the exchange of criminal funds between players, with the use of VPNs exposing online casinos to a higher risk.
The study found that there has been an increase in reported incidents since 2020. The number of suspicious activity reports (SAR) was over 6,000 between 2022-23 and over 7,5000 between 2023-24 – a 26% spike.
Though this jump could be attributed to improved industry resources, better reporting practices and training as well as a better understanding of reporting SARs.
The recent implementation of the £5 online slots stake limit has meant there is limited data to conclude whether it has increased or decreased the money laundering and terrorist financing risk.
With illegal casinos not under the supervision of the UK regulator, as well as the rise of crypto, the Gambling Commission has continued to take action according to the risk assessment study.
The report read: “This includes joint action with the police to identify and close illegal non-remote casinos and disrupt the activities of illegal remote casinos.
“Suspected [money laundering] and other serious predicate offences have been identified during these joint operations, resulting in arrests being made.
“Between April 2024 and March 2025, the Gambling Commission issued 1,158 stage one cease and desist notices in relation to illegal casinos, referred 118,181 URLs to Google and Bing and had 81,292 URLs which promoted illegal casinos removed from search engine results.”
Other emerging risks include in-game currencies and crypto casino crash games which are illegal in the UK.
On the topic of crypto crash games, the study added: “The increased interest from the regulated casino market in crash games may pose an opportunity to launder criminal funds through GB-regulated operators.
“As there is an incentive for legitimate customers to use these games in a similar way as may be useful to criminals, criminals could conceal the high-risk behaviour of cashing out quickly with limited gameplay within the context of the crash game.”
The use of e-wallets in igaming can make investigating money laundering and terrorist financing difficult, due to the “co-mingling of funds” in regulated money laundering regulated (MLR) activities such as casino betting and non-MLR regulated activities such as betting and bingo.
While match-fixing continues to be a risk, the volume of reporting suspicious betting activity has fallen since 2020.
The study read: “Common areas of [money laundering] risk include illegal betting groups manipulating or creating false markets, creation of illegal betting apps, customers defrauded using illegal websites, illegal 112 gambling premises knowingly allowing the use of criminal funds to gamble, and non-gambling premises allowing large scale cash gambling illegally.
“The widening availability of betting markets means that there are emerging threats, eg the emergence of political and novel betting markets.”
The post UK government raises money laundering risk level in gambling industry from low to medium first appeared on EGR Intel.
Government’s national risk assessment attributes the rise to an increase in online casinos since 2020, though terrorist financing threat remains low
The post UK government raises money laundering risk level in gambling industry from low to medium first appeared on EGR Intel.