Entain sued by AUSTRAC for accepting £76m in bets from 17 'high-risk' criminal accounts

Imago

Gambling giant, and owners of Ladbrokes and Coral, Entain are being sued by the Australian finance and intelligence agency, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), over anti-money laundering (AML)  and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) failures.

Federal court documents claimed that the company took over AU$152m (£76m) in bets from 17 ‘high-risk’ players with 'suspected criminal profiles and associations’. Those players also withdrew a total of AU$105m, of that AU$152m, out of their betting accounts.

The court documents suggested that Entain was aware that these customers may have been laundering money.

AUSTRAC are suing Entain for not maintaining an anti-money laundering programme and for failing to identify the risks that come with that, leaving the company to become at serious risk of exploitation from criminals.

In summary the allegations brought to the court against the parent company of Ladbrokes are: 

• The business is run through an app meaning other people than the user could access accounts to operate nefarious activities
• Third parties accept cash deposits, on behalf of Entain, that could be associated to criminal activity
• The company cannot confirm the identity of customers making the deposits, or where the money came from
• No senior management, or board member, had oversights on the AML or CFT programme 
• No appropriate checks were conducted on the 17 high-risk customers
• The company hid the identities of some of these high-risk customers under pseudonyms to protect their privacy.

Entain CEO, Gavin Isaacs, commented: “We have cooperated fully with AUSTRAC throughout its investigation and we are implementing further enhancements to Entain Australia’s AML and CTF compliance arrangements.

“Whilst we still have some further improvements to make, we expect these to be implemented in line with the plan we communicated to AUSTRAC in 2023.”

Meanwhile, the AUSTRAC CEO, Brendan Thomas, said in a statement: “We are alleging this (the above points) left the company at serious risk of criminal exploitation. Money laundering is often a symptom of serious criminal activity, including fraud, scams and corruption, all of which have equally serious effects on our communities.”

Entain’s share price has fallen almost 7% since 16 December, after AUSTRAC announced that the company “deliberately obscured the identities” of high-risk customers and failed to stop “serious risk of criminal exploitation".

The case is now with the Federal Court in Australia.