\n(Reuters) – U.S. casinos may soon have to vet where their high rollers’ funds come from under a requirement being developed by the U.S. Treasury Department, according to two people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
\tThe move is part of a push to address longstanding regulatory and law enforcement concerns that criminals can use casinos, which have not historically been as closely monitored as banks for compliance with anti-money laundering laws, to convert proceeds of crime into money that appears clean.<\/p>\n
\tUnder current law, casinos are required to report suspicious activity. A customer who used a large sum of cash to buy chips, gambled briefly, and then asked to cash out with a casino check, for example, would likely get reported to authorities.<\/p>\n
\tBut existing rules do not explicitly require casinos to vet the source of gamblers’ funds.<\/p>\n
\tThe new rule, which is being considered by Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) unit and would make such obligations explicit, is in the early stages and may take a year or more to complete, the people familiar with the proposal said.<\/p>\n
\tThe rule is likely to require casinos to get more information about certain customers in order to shed light on high-risk transactions such as international wires and large cash deposits, said the sources, who asked not to be named.<\/p>\n
\tFinCEN spokesman Steve Hudak declined to comment on "any potential rule making," but said the Treasury bureau "continually examines its rules, and periodically considers updates, to ensure their continued effectiveness".<\/p>\n
\tA spokeswoman for a casino trade group, the American Gaming Association, said the group is engaging regularly with FinCEN, but declined to comment on any specific discussions.<\/p>\n
\t"Our industry is committed to a culture of compliance and we appreciate FinCEN’s open dialogue and look forward to future collaboration," Stephanie Chan said.<\/p>\n
\tPROBING CUSTOMERS<\/p>\n
\tEven though the agency has not yet publicly discussed any rule proposal, FinCEN officials have in recent months stepped up their outreach to the industry.<\/p>\n
\tIn September, FinCEN director Jennifer Shasky Calvery delivered a strongly worded message at a gaming industry conference.<\/p>\n
\t"When some casinos say that probing their customers about their activities outside of the casino will drive customers away, I sense that they feel that it is not their responsibility to protect their institutions, and our financial system as a whole, from being used by illicit actors," Shasky said.<\/p>\n
\t"You ask your customers many questions about their preferences; you can and should get information about their sources of funds to meet your obligations to identify and report suspicious activity," she added.<\/p>\n
\tIn August Las Vegas Sands Corp agreed to pay the Justice Department more than $47 million over anti-money laundering lapses at its Venetian and Palazzo hotel complex in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\tFinCEN is also investigating possible compliance lapses at other Las Vegas casinos, the two sources said.<\/p>\n
\t"There is a sea change afoot with respect to casinos and U.S. government focus on them because there is just so much money that moves through casinos," said Kevin Rosenberg, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who pursued the Sands case and is now in private practice. "The message is ‘You’ve got to get a lot better than you have been.’"<\/p>\n
\t(Reporting by Brett Wolf of the Compliance Complete service of Thomson Reuters Accelus accelus.thomsonreuters.com\/; Editing by Randall Mikkelsen and Stephen Powell)<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> TheLion on April 1, 2014, 7:40 pm<\/p>\n \tI’m sure we haven’t heard the last of it<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Posted by:<\/strong> RFink13 on April 3, 2014, 4:10 pm<\/p>\n Posted by:<\/strong> Dr Crapology on April 5, 2014, 11:36 am<\/p>\n \tBut I have to complete the same paper work for someone who wants to put $2500 into an annuity and I know it is legal. No wonder I want to retire. Just another area where the feds are driving people out of business. But why bother with these "little" people. <\/p>\n \tTypically we all pay the price for a few crooks.<\/p>\n \tDoc<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Reuters) – U.S. casinos may soon have to vet where their high rollers’ funds come from under a requirement being developed by the U.S. Treasury Department, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move is part of a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}