British Columbia to pay casinos more to ensure AML compliance

British Columbia’s self-regulated gambling monopoly is giving itself new powers to curb rampant money laundering at the land-based casinos it was already supposed to be regulating.

On Thursday, the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) announced that it was updating its operational services agreement (OSA) for casino and community gaming services. Among other things, the new 20-year OSA aims to strengthen BCLC’s “oversight in the areas of compliance and security including escalation mechanisms and progressive discipline measures.”

BCLC came in for a torrent of criticism a couple months back, following a change in provincial leadership that uncovered a year-old report that had been buried by the former Liberal government.

The report contained details of stupendous indifference to anti-money laundering practices at BC casinos, particularly the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond, where Asian VIPs with questionable funding sources were able to buy millions of dollars in casino chips with gym bags full of 20-dollar bills.