Betting giant Entain is being taken to court by Australia’s financial crime regulator over allegations it breached anti-money laundering rules in the country, leaving it at “serious risk of criminal exploitation”.
The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac) said it had started civil penalty proceedings in the federal court against the company.
The regulator alleges that Entain breached anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) laws through its online betting platforms.
Entain, which owns betting shops Ladbrokes and Coral, said the outcome of civil penalty proceedings were uncertain, but could result in it being hit with a “potentially material” penalty.
Austrac’s allegations include that Entain’s board and senior management did not appropriately oversee its AML and CTF programme, which left it vulnerable to criminal exploitation.
We note the allegations made, which we take extremely seriously
It also claims the firm did not conduct appropriate checks on 17 higher-risk customers, including where there was a risk of its online betting systems being exploited by criminals to spend the proceeds of serious crime.
In some cases, Entain used pseudonyms to obscure the identity of high-risk customers on its own systems, according to the allegations.
Gavin Isaacs, chief executive of Entain, said: “We note the allegations made, which we take extremely seriously.
“We have co-operated 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.”
Last year, Entain was hammered by a £585 million settlement with HM Revenue & Customs to resolve an investigation into alleged bribery at its former Turkish business.
It has since been driving a turnaround in its financial performance having been weighed down by heavy losses and seeing a new chief executive join the group following a seven-month search.
Shares in Entain were down 4% on Monday morning.
