severe regulatory consequences<\/strong>, the sector is densely regulated and not the haven for financial crime some claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe report notes that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– \u201cthe ‘cleaning’ of the proceeds of crime is not widespread in clubs and pubs as processing vast sums of cash is inefficient compared to other avenues for laundering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– \u201cthat many of the individuals referred to publicly as engaged in high-level money laundering had in fact been engaging in suspicious, but ultimately lawful activities.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– “Others, known to be engaged in crime that generates a large cash flow and who were using EGMs, were also investigated to ascertain whether they were laundering the proceeds of their offending via the machines in an effort to disguise the origins of the funds. Few were.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s also been suggested that the report contains a misinformed and incorrect statement regarding the government’s Central Monitoring System (CMS). The report claims the CMS was not designed to collect information that could flag money laundering<\/strong>, however, it’s known that regulatory enhancements including anti-money laundering functionality were core upgrades.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA Liquor & Gaming NSW media release from February 26 2016 says: \u201cThe new system will include enhancements to ensure the integrity of gaming operations in NSW, including detecting potential money laundering activities, in-venue fraud and ensuring gaming machines operate within approved times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The executive director responsible for reforming casino oversight and overseeing the CMS build and implementation was made redundant following the NSW Government\u2019s 2019 decision to dismantle the liquor and gambling regulator and merge it with the Customer Service Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A week ago, Josh Landis<\/strong>, ClubsNSW chief executive officer, said the proposal to introduce mandatory cashless gaming cards in NSW wouldn\u2019t solve the problem of money laundering.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLandis said: \u201cWhat\u2019s happening is criminals are spending the proceeds of crime [on the pokies]. Guess what? They spend on everything from tattoos and handbags to jewellery and jetskis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added: \u201cThe [NSW] Crime Commission has recommended a solution that only applies to pokie machines but has done nothing to resolve the broader issue of criminals spending money\u2026 You would solve crime in a heartbeat by locking everyone in their homes but we don\u2019t allow it because we\u2019re not a police state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Labor Party leader Chris Minns’s election strategy has no space for debate on the NSW Crime Commission\u2019s recommendation to introduce mandatory cashless gambling cards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":21504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"New South Wales Labor leader Chris Minns is reportedly avoiding debate on the NSW Crime Commission's recommendation for mandatory cashless gambling cards, despite industry pushback. The proposal, aimed at combating money laundering in pubs and clubs, faces scrutiny regarding the actual scale of financial crime in the sector and the efficacy of the proposed solution. Industry stakeholders question the report's findings and the broader impact of such a mandate on the regulated gaming environment.","focusai_entities":"Chris Minns, Labor Party, NSW Crime Commission, The Sydney Morning Herald, Liquor & Gaming NSW, ClubsNSW, Josh Landis","focusai_location":"Australia, New South Wales, Sydney","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.95), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.85), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Regulatory Impact Analysis","query":"What are the projected GGR and NGR impacts for NSW gaming operators if a mandatory cashless gambling card system is implemented, considering potential player migration and operational overheads?"},{"label":"AML Framework Efficacy","query":"How do the NSW Crime Commission's findings on money laundering in pubs and clubs align with existing AML program effectiveness, and what specific enhancements are proposed beyond cashless cards to address identified vulnerabilities?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,156,158],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-777000277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777000277"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777000293,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000277\/revisions\/777000293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777000277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777000277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777000277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}