The street that is high shops throughout the UK are filled with desperate punters and casual gamblers alike, and you might be forgiven for thinking that a handful of those may fall under the miscreant category. But what’s surprising about a number of users is 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) arrived in the united kingdom back in 2001 and tend to be just subject to light regulation, meaning players were able to bet a reported £100 ($158) every 10 20 seconds on some of the machines. And because the FOBT that is average in around £900 ($1,430) per week in profits, based on industry numbers, bookies throughout the country have jumped up to speed and Britain is now home to 33,345 of these addictive devices.

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

He claims drug dealers place their money through the devices, cashing out the majority after taking small losses from their wagering system and getting a printed ticket which demonstrates they have been gambling that day. This then provides them a good reason to carry large amounts of cash if they’re questioned by the police.

Seedy as it might sound, it seems that regulating systems know of this money laundering scheme, since Coral bookmakers were recently fined £90,000 ($143,000) in earnings it made from one money-laundering drug dealer who had put around £1 million through its bookie shops.

The regulatory body which 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 betting model which includes high volumes of cash deals, particularly where this includes low individual spend and a higher level of anonymity.’

Gambling Act Not Doing Its Job

The 2005 Gambling Act which now regulates the gambling terminals originally stated that preventing gambling from becoming a way to obtain crime or being connected with crime was one of its main objectives. Clearly it hasn’t been too successful, as the FOBTs allow the criminals to quickly and easily convert large quantities of real money into digital currency, and then later convert this back to hard cash again. It appears to really be a very efficient way of laundering money.

Drug dealers evidently use these terminals methodically to be able to simply clean their money as the machines are incredibly gently policed. Some bookies even allow the gamblers to possess their funds transferred 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 change up their gambling style occasionally in order to go completely unnoticed, but whether or perhaps not this is just sufficient for the bookies to deny a knowledge of the illegality of their punters or if the strategies really work is anyone’s cynical guess.

But despite bookies’ statements that they adhere to regulatory responsibilities, it seems unlikely that the patient outlets would turn away money regardless, especially when many ‘small-time’ drug dealers whom utilize the bookies to launder their cash are reported to be well worth around £15,000 a year each to the betting industry.

Evidently, even demonstrably stolen bills are easily used on the terminals.

‘You’ve got people money that is laundering day with cash from robberies and medications. Do you know that dyed notes from bank robberies can be submitted to the Bank of England and the business gets reimbursed?’ explained the drug dealer that is 24-year-old. ‘Staff knows exactly what pays their wages.’