{"id":777024029,"date":"2025-03-13T10:03:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T13:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777024029"},"modified":"2026-04-22T00:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:54:16","slug":"sportsbet-ceo-admits-failures-in-tackling-financial-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/sportsbet-ceo-admits-failures-in-tackling-financial-crimes","title":{"rendered":"Sportsbet CEO admits failures in tackling financial crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barni Evans said the company failed to prevent financial crime and integrity risks in sports betting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- Barni Evans<\/strong>, Sportsbet’s CEO, has said the company did not fully understand its duty to prevent financial crime and protect sports from integrity threats. At an industry conference in Sydney, Evans admitted Sportsbet \u201cforgot to do some grownup things\u201d and \u201cstuffed a lot of things up\u201d, including its involvement in an advertising \u201carms race\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to The Guardian, Evans said that, in the past, Sportsbet did a \u201cterrible job\u201d of notifying sports organisations about betting transactions that could threaten integrity. He said the company now realises the importance of protecting Australians from organised and financial crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evans also said the gambling industry and government agencies had been slow to create a national self-exclusion system. Legislation was introduced in 2018, but the register was not launched until August 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last May, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) accepted an enforceable undertaking<\/a> from Sportsbets to improve its compliance with the country\u2019s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML\/CTF) laws after reviewing an external auditor\u2019s report and Sportsbet\u2019s efforts to meet legal requirements. Sportsbet was ordered to implement a detailed remedial action plan to enhance its AML\/CTF program, with AUSTRAC to oversee progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gambling losses amount to US$960 per adult in Australia, study finds<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A report by\u00a0Equity Economics<\/strong>\u00a0for the\u00a0Alliance for Gambling Reform<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Wesley Mission<\/strong>\u00a0has found that gambling losses continue to grow in Australia. The research found that annual gambling losses for 2022-23 amounted to\u00a0AU$1,527\u00a0(US$960) per adult, while total gambling losses stood at\u00a0AU$31.5bn\u00a0(US$19.8bn). They said gambling rose despite a rise in the costs of essential goods and services and a decline in real wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Equity Economics, although wages have declined 5.7 per cent in real terms since June 2019, real gambling expenditure has risen by 6.8 per cent. This occurred in every state and territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Alliance for Gambling Reform <\/strong>and Wesley Mission<\/strong> urged the government to implement all 31 recommendations<\/strong> from the Murphy Inquiry<\/a>, including a ban on gambling ads, the prohibition of gambling inducements and the introduction of a levy on gambling to fund harm reduction programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They asked the government to create a national regulator and national gambling ombudsman, to enforce the closure of gambling machines between midnight and 10 am and to introduce mandatory cashless gaming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barni Evans said the company failed to prevent financial crime and integrity risks in sports betting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Sportsbet's CEO, Barni Evans, admitted the company's past failures in AML\/CTF compliance and sports integrity protection, acknowledging an \"advertising arms race\" and slow progress on national self-exclusion. This comes as new research highlights escalating gambling losses in Australia, prompting calls from advocacy groups for comprehensive regulatory reforms, including a national regulator, advertising bans, and mandatory cashless gaming.","focusai_entities":"Barni Evans, Sportsbet, AUSTRAC, Equity Economics, Alliance for Gambling Reform, Wesley Mission, Murphy Inquiry","focusai_location":"Australia, Sydney","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.98), compliance_legal (0.98), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.85), product_ux (0.75), tech_data (0.7), marketing_crm (0.88), payments_fraud_aml (0.98), investor_analyst (0.92), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Sportsbet's Remedial Plan?","query":"What specific enhancements to Sportsbet's AML\/CTF program are mandated by AUSTRAC's enforceable undertaking, and what is the projected timeline for full implementation and oversight?"},{"label":"Impact of Ad Ban?","query":"How would a comprehensive ban on gambling advertisements and inducements, as proposed by advocacy groups, quantitatively impact operator GGR and NGR in the Australian market?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,156],"tags":[24664],"class_list":["post-777024029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-regulation-news","tag-sportsbet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024029","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=777024029"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777024035,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777024029\/revisions\/777024035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777024029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777024029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777024029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}