Hawaiian Gardens Casino, California’s second-largest card room, has been fined almost $6 million by state and federal regulators. Casino AML regulations can be stringent, the law requires casinos to file suspicious activity and currency transaction reports consistently. However, these fines prove that it is a risky gamble for these casinos to be non-compliant. Hollywood Gardens Casino was fined because of lack of money laundering prevention measures and misleading gambling regulators.

Recently, Crown Casino in Australia was the in the news for AML concerns. Casinos have been used by criminals to launder money in the past and AML regulations have been put in place to prevent it in the future if possible. Money gained through illegal means can be converted to credit or chips in the casino. Then the chips or credit is turned back in for cash that has now been successfully laundered. In 1985, casinos began being classified as financial institutions by the Bank Secrecy Act. This means that commercial casinos (both online and brick-and-mortar) are required to submit relevant reports and it have an AML program in place.

The charges against Hawaiian Gardens Casino were based on issues that occurred from 2009 to 2016. Since then, the casino has put new procedures in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

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