Gaming companies in Australia benefit from proceeds of crime
Crime-Funded Gambling
In September 2022, Gavin Fineff, a former financial consultant based in Sydney, pleaded guilty to several fraud charges in New South Wales District Court. Fineff lost over $8 million in sports betting, with most of the money owned by his clients and friends. The victims of these thefts never got their money back. Fineff will be sentenced in January.
In 2021, a 48-year-old Tasmanian woman was sued for stealing $940,221 from a veterinary practice where she worked. She also accumulated a debt of $24,218 on a credit card that was obtained illegally. The woman was diagnosed with a gambling disorder and spent most of her money playing at Heart of Vegas, a social casino owned by Aristocrat Leisure, Australia's leading poker machine manufacturer.
She played the game through Facebook, which in turn kept 30% of every transaction she made. The 48-year-old woman was sentenced to 26 counts of fraud and was issued with a compensatory order to return money to the companies she stole from, despite the fact that she was already in deep red. Both companies, Aristocrat and Facebook, kept the money, says Convery for besttour.com.ua .
In 2018, another Tasmanian aged 27 who worked as an assistant financial accountant was sentenced on various fraud charges after stealing $292,955 from his employer and others. The man said in court that he stole the money, driven by gambling addiction. He deposited money into his Sportsbet account but lost everything. He was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay compensation, despite the fact that he already had a lot of debt.
Restitution orders are "empty promises"
Michael O 'Connell, a former victims' rights commissioner for South Australia, called restitution orders against people convicted of gambling fraud "empty promises". He also added that even if a person manages to partially pay off the remaining debts and compensation, the amount does not match the money that was actually lost and the harm that the victims experienced.
Lauren Levin, Director of Policy and Campaigns in Financial Counseling Australia, commented that the current legal and regulatory system is also failing people suffering from a gambling disorder. No one chooses to be addicted, and people with gambling problems never thought they would commit such crimes.
States and local territories should regulate gambling companies. They should also study the sources of clients' wealth. Australia's Transaction Reporting and Analysis Centre, AUSTRAC, is responsible for investigating organizations that do not comply with established laws.
Sportsbet is licensed in the Northern Territory, where laws are not as strict as in other territories. However, in 2019, the respective government legislated so-called codes of practice for online gambling companies. Under these laws, gambling companies are required to train their staff to recognize and take action when they detect behavior associated with problem gambling, such as "gambling for a long period of time", "changing gambling patterns", "increasing frequency of deposits" and "increasing the amount of money deposited".
Sportsbet commented that they acted correctly in the case of a 27-year-old Tasmanian and will not return the money received from him.
Heart of Vegas is not regulated as a gambling game in Australia because players cannot cash out their winnings.
Product Madness, the UK subsidiary of Aristocrat, which publishes Heart of Vegas, declined to comment on the case women.
Due diligence for high-risk clients
According to Peter Soros, Associate Executive Director for Regulatory Strategy at Austrac, gaming companies do not conduct additional on the other hand, Levin noted that when a young financial professional on a salary bets thousands of dollars over several months, this can be a wake-up call for large gambling companies to get suspicious.
Lewin went on to say that the situation might have been different if there had been a role for the director of the Commonwealth Attorney's Office to act on behalf of victims to recover money from gambling companies. She said that if gambling operators profit from gambling financed by