The high street betting shops throughout the UK are filled with desperate punters and casual gamblers alike, and you might be forgiven for thinking that a handful of them may fall into the miscreant category. But what’s surprising about a number of users is they are actually drug dealers that are 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) appeared in the UK back in 2001 and tend to be just topic to light regulation, meaning players have been able to bet a reported £100 ($158) every 10 20 moments on a number of the machines. And because the FOBT that is average in around £900 ($1,430) per week in profits, according to industry numbers, bookies through the entire 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 medication dealer, who feeds £200 ($316) into the devices at any given time while jumping between six wagering shops in his local town, told a UK magazine that using these FOBTs is ‘what turns money clean’ that is dirty.

He claims drug dealers put their cash through the devices, cashing out the majority after taking small losses from their wagering system and obtaining a printed solution which demonstrates that they have been gambling that day. This then provides them a good reason to transport considerable amounts of money if they’re questioned by the authorities.

Seedy it appears that regulating bodies are aware of this money laundering scheme, since Coral bookmakers were recently fined £90,000 ($143,000) in profits it made from one money-laundering drug dealer who had put around £1 million through its bookie shops as it may sound.

The body that is regulatory 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 wagering model which includes high volumes of cash deals, particularly where this includes low individual spend and a higher degree of privacy.’

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 associated with crime had been one of its objectives that are primary. Clearly this hasn’t been too successful, as the FOBTs allow the criminals to easily and quickly convert large amounts of genuine money into digital currency, then later convert this back again to cash that is hard. It appears to actually be described as a very efficient way of laundering cash.

Drug dealers evidently utilize these terminals methodically in order to simply clean their money as the machines are so gently policed. Some bookies also enable the gamblers to own 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 improve up their gambling style here and there in order to go completely unnoticed, but whether or perhaps not this is simply sufficient for the bookies to deny a knowledge of the illegality of their punters or in the event that tactics actually work is anyone’s cynical guess.

But despite bookies’ statements it seems unlikely that the individual outlets would turn away money regardless, especially when many ‘small-time’ drug dealers who use the bookies to launder their money are reported to be worth around £15,000 a year each to the betting industry that they comply with regulatory obligations.

Evidently, even clearly stolen bills are easily used regarding the terminals.

‘You’ve got people laundering money every time with cash from robberies and drugs. Do you understand that dyed notes from bank robberies are submitted to the Bank of England and the company gets reimbursed?’ explained the 24-year-old drug dealer. ‘Staff knows what pays their wages.’