Leaders of a senate panel Wednesday called for stronger oversight of online gaming to reverse the effects of a 2011 U.S. Justice Department memorandum that loosened restrictions on the industry.
An agreement between a global online gaming company and an Atlantic City casino to offer Internet wagering in New Jersey faces an uphill battle to gain the necessary approval from state regulators, say analysts.
In the wake of a Florida crackdown on cashless gambling operations, some large banks have begun reviewing their relationships with Internet sweepstakes parlors, say compliance officers.
The conviction of a payment processor accused of aiding Internet gambling companies highlights the compliance hurdles anti-money laundering officers face when maintaining accounts for merchant transactions, say bank and law enforcement officials.
A U.S. Justice Department memorandum clearing the way for online gaming may exacerbate compliance woes for banks operating under a 2006 anti-gambling law, say attorneys and industry groups.
As some states inch toward legalizing online gambling, they are unlikely to get much cooperation from financial institutions concerned that they'll be held liable for processing even legal bets, say analysts.
The U.S. government's crackdown on the largest online gambling operations this month has prompted American gamblers to place their bets elsewhere on the Web, with few signs of a long-term slowdown for the industry.
The U.S. Justice Department is seeking $3 billion in forfeitures and fines from three of the largest online gambling businesses and the financial institutions and individuals that helped to process bets.
The U.S. House Financial Services Committee approved a measure Wednesday that would legalize some Internet gambling and diminish the compliance duties of financial institutions monitoring for online bets and payouts.
U.S. banks are still fine tuning policies on when to report suspicious activity and reject transactions tied to online gambling after the passing of a June 1 enforcement deadline.
An online gambling ban that requires banks to monitor for illegal transactions is unlikely to be overturned before a June 1 enforcement deadline, despite congressional efforts to repeal the law.
Partisan bickering and a backlog of legislation are stymieing congressional attempts to overturn a controversial ban on online gambling before a June enforcement deadline, according to analysts.
The federal ban on processing transactions tied to Internet gambling will likely be overturned at some point, but lawmakers have yet to address how to best mitigate related money laundering risks, according to a former IRS agent who recently testified before U.S. lawmakers.
U.S. financial regulators Friday granted financial institutions a six-month delay in enforcing a controversial Internet gambling ban that will require banks to freeze transactions tied to the illegal organizations.
A Canadian national laundered nearly $380 million and illegally processed payouts from online gambling companies to their U.S.-based customers, according to a federal indictment released Thursday. The indictment seeks more than half-billion dollars in forfeitures.
Federal regulators finalized rules Wednesday on how financial institutions should monitor and prohibit transactions involving illegal Internet gambling operations.
Proposed federal banking regulations targeting online gambling will force banks and other financial institutions to rethink their customer due diligence procedures, AML consultants say
The proposal would forbid the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve from enforcing requirements of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.
The proposal, issued by the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, implements the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. That act, which took effect in October, prohibits financial institutions from "knowingly" processing transactions from online gaming sites.
Federal law prohibits banks and other financial institutions from "knowingly" accepting funds from Internet gambling operations. But the law is not clear about what constitutes knowingly accepting funds, observers say.