UK Home Office raises concerns over money laundering risk from illegal gambling
The government department has upgraded the anti-money laundering (AML) threat level from low to medium.
UK.- The British Home Office’s 2025 National Risk Assessment (NRA) has raised concerns about money laundering amid a rise in unlicensed casino operations. The government department has raised the anti-money laundering (AML) threat level from low to medium due to evolving risk, particularly noting online gambling as a factor.
The latest assesment marks a change from reports in 2017 and 2020, which maintained a low-risk rating. It cited a change in customer behaviors over the past five years, as well as geographic vulnerabilities, and transactional complexities.
The report finds the role of online casinos to be a particular concenr due to the way funds move through the platforms. It also notes that although fewer casinos now offer services like currency exchange and cheque cashing, those that do offer money services pose amplified money laundering threats since they tend to attract higher-risk clients engaged in transactions with jurisdictions considered financially unstable or prone to criminal activity.
The Home Office did not name any specific countries in its NRA, but it noted that the volume of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) linked to casinos had climbed sharply, from 6,000 in 2022–23 to 7,500 in 2023–24. It said that illegal gambling sites continued to lure players using aggressive online marketing.
Meanwhile, emerging technologies have introduced new challenges. The NRA identifies the use of artificial intelligence to produce deepfaked documents, and the Home Office flagged risks tied to in-game currencies and “crash” style games, both of which have been used for fraud and money laundering within licensed environments.
While the report acknowledges the threats from the black market, it also highlights weaknesses in the regulated sector and suggests that addressing these could strengthen the industry’s stance against illicit competition and lend greater credibility to its warnings. It particularly raised concerns about white-label casino arrangements, through which foreign companies operate UK-facing websites under another firm’s gambling licence.
In certain cases, operators outsourced compliance duties to unregulated partners, prompting the Home Office to emphasise that licensed entities retain legal responsibility, even if oversight was lacking. Although these setups have become less common, the risks remain, especially when a provider runs numerous sites, making the impact of non-compliance potentially wide-reaching, the report states.
Recent controversies put the spotlight on Isle of Man-based firms, after TGP Europe pulled out of the British market. The Gambling Commission has ordered it to pay a £3.3m penalty if it wanted to continue trading. The operator ran sites for 15 brands, including severa Premier League football sponsors. It was accused of breaching anti-money laundering rules and failing to carry out sufficient checks on business partners.
