The high street gambling shops through the UK are filled with desperate punters and casual gamblers alike, and you could be forgiven for thinking that a few of those may fall into the miscreant category. But what’s surprising about a number of users is that they are actually drug dealers who’re using the facilities not to gamble their gains that are ill-gotten but to ‘clean’ them.

Minimal Regulations Make Laundering Easy

Fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) appeared in the united kingdom back in 2001 and are just subject to light regulation, meaning players happen able to bet a reported £100 ($158) every 10 20 moments on some of the machines. And because the normal FOBT rakes in around £900 ($1,430) per week in profits, based on industry numbers, bookies throughout the country have jumped on board and Britain is now home to 33,345 of these addictive devices.

However now a 24-year-old unnamed medication dealer, who feeds £200 ($316) into the machines at a time while jumping between six gambling shops in his regional town, told a UK newspaper that using these FOBTs is ‘what turns dirty money clean’.

He claims drug dealers place their cash through the machines, cashing out the majority after taking small losses from their wagering system and obtaining a ticket that is printed demonstrates they have been gambling that day. This then offers them reason to hold huge amounts of cash if they’re questioned by the police.

Seedy it appears that regulating bodies are aware of this money laundering scheme, since Coral bookmakers were recently fined £90,000 ($143,000) in profits it made from one money-laundering drug dealer who had put around £1 million through its bookie shops as it may sound.

The body that is regulatory fined Coral, the Gambling Commission, also recently announced publicly that FOBTs present a ‘high inherent money-laundering risk’ and warned, in a letter to the industry trade association, about ‘a retail wagering model which includes high volumes of money transactions, particularly where this includes low individual spend and a top level of privacy.’

Gambling Act Not Doing Its Job

The 2005 Gambling Act which now regulates the betting terminals originally stated that preventing gambling from becoming a supply of crime or being associated with crime had been one of its main objectives. Demonstrably it hasn’t been too successful, as the FOBTs allow the criminals to quickly convert large amounts of genuine cash into digital currency, then later convert this back once again to cash that is hard. It seems to actually be described as a very efficient way of laundering cash.

Drug dealers apparently utilize these terminals methodically so that you can clean their cash simply because the machines are incredibly lightly policed. Some bookies also enable the gamblers to own their funds transmitted electronically either to their online gambling account, such as Ladbrokes, or straight into their bank account, something offered by William Hill, leaving a digital trace which makes the money appear as gambling winnings.

Drug dealers do reportedly have to alter up their gambling style occasionally in order to go completely unnoticed, but whether or otherwise not this is just enough for the bookies to deny a knowledge of the illegality of their punters or in the event that techniques in fact work is anyone’s cynical guess.

But despite bookies’ statements that they comply with regulatory obligations, it appears unlikely that the patient outlets would turn away money regardless, particularly when many ’small-time’ drug dealers whom use the bookies to launder their money are reported become worth around £15,000 a year each to the betting industry.

Apparently, even obviously taken bills are easily utilized in the terminals.

‘You have people laundering money every day with cash from robberies and medications. Do you understand that dyed notes from bank robberies may be submitted to the Bank of England and the company gets reimbursed?’ explained the 24-year-old drug dealer. ‘Staff knows what pays their wages.’