Have some people used casinos to hide the origin of funds?

[iv4n]

I would like to link these two (three) posts because I find it interesting that 1) most money laundering goes through banks as iv4n said, so I imagine that criminals know how to do these things with traditional methods and they don't really need to innovate with new methods online or with crypto, and 2) as long as every time you deposit your coins in a centralised casino you are relying on a third party anyway, what's the deal in using them to hide the origin of funds? Perhaps some people use/used casinos that way, but it doesn't seem to be the most suitable method.

It's all about the amount of money... We can easily imagine someone laundering $100k sometimes, but how to launder millions of dollars every month? How to launder +$10 million? How to launder billions and trillions of dollars every year? And that's how much the cartels and strong criminal organizations earn:

The Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) group is the current grouping term for international criminal syndicates across the globe. And they "make" over $2.8 trillion annually. The world's total net worth is $510 trillion, which means crime owns 0.6% of the money in the world.

And this is information from 2017, now the numbers are probably higher...

That much money is not laundered in casinos and crypto, some of it certainly is, but it is a small part. Big money is laundered through various companies all over the world, banking havens... this is done by a team of accountants who falsify various documents to make the money look clean. Everyone makes money there, maybe the banks more than other parties. One thing is sure, without banks, there are no big deals...

[mirakal]

It's not as fun as it used to be and now there are so many rules and regulations to follow that gambling in peace is not possible. As gambling is banned in my country so i want to gamble secretly. So kyc is a big barrier so it is better if there is no requirement to use kyc in crypto market. But in the past almost all gambling platforms were independent and you could gamble as much as you wanted without kyc hassles. Now many platforms make trouble when you win big money and give withdrawal.

this is why there is a market for fake documents and it is thriving (not a call to action) I often see in chats an offer to purchase a complete package of documents for an exchange or any other site where this is required. And this is risky and there are more disadvantages from this since the funds may be are blocked or the real owner of the documents will take his account back, so if registration is prohibited in some region, then you should not break the law.

Some people commit this kind of illegal activity because of government policies and restrictions which they find a burden to them. Fake documents are very easy to get now due to technology enhancement but even if we think that the government policies are not fair anymore, I don't think we have to break the law. That is not enough to reason out why we do this and I don't think being a responsible citizen would choose this way when knowing that the consequences of getting into jail are high. If we don't have the chance and if gambling is banned in our country, then we accept it rather than forcing ourselves and committing illegal actions as we know that this won't end up good.

[Dave1]

And if you are not aware of, https://x.com/theklineventure/status/1810068252900376999

It says that part of the stolen fund went to Stake:

You can find the Ethereum transactions with links in the comment below.

Part of the $1.7M ends up at http://Stake.com

@StakeEddie, BijanTehrani, Stake
 urgent attention needed

So this is big news as the criminals tries to hide it in a casino but I don't think that he can get away with it since Stake requires KYC and so they can go and trace it and maybe cooperate with the authorities to arrest this group.

Lesson here is that do not used casino to launder money.

[boltz]

If this surprises you , wait until you see what people are doing with Steam CS2 inventory! They have millions of $ in Cs2 skins with 0 hours of playing and that is clearly money laundering and other suspicious activities so for me it's kinda normal to see this kind of situations with casinos. However , casinos can lock up those funds anytime they want when instead in Cs2 inventory no one can do anything besides you + those rare skins are only going up on value so you kinda never lose the value of your original investment. Crazy right ? 

[Samlucky O]

I never knew that someone can use casino to hide the origin of fund. Although if not for a bad intention of a case of stolen fund or hacked fund I don't see any reason why someone would want to go through that process why there are just simply ways to send fund and trade through P2P and cashout your bulks. But any way whatever has disadvantages also have advantage meaning it can be used to keep fund safe from hackers or people who might be tracing someones fund so with this process the destination will be cut short along the way. Thereby bridging the tace.

[ethereumhunter]

I never knew that someone can use casino to hide the origin of fund. Although if not for a bad intention of a case of stolen fund or hacked fund I don't see any reason why someone would want to go through that process why there are just simply ways to send fund and trade through P2P and cashout your bulks. But any way whatever has disadvantages also have advantage meaning it can be used to keep fund safe from hackers or people who might be tracing someones fund so with this process the destination will be cut short along the way. Thereby bridging the tace.

Yes, they can hid the origin of fund in many places including in casinos because other people will not knows what they do except casino. Casino will asks us to explain where the funds come from and that's why casino will asks their members to do KYC especially if casino finds something suspicious from their members.

There will be someone used casino or other business to hide the origin of the fund from the authorities. Those people use illegal ways to make money and they wants to hide that from the authorities so they will search for a way to makes their activity difficult to finds by the authorities. Those who hide the origin of funds will trying many ways to make sure their secret will be safe from the authorities so they use casinos to hide it. That will makes authorities difficult to track the origin of funds especially if casinos is not report the suspicious activity in their place.

[Rabata]

Real gamblers never try to launder money using casinos. Because they focus on both winning and losing in gambling. But those who are dishonest only use the casino platform and try to legitimize their illegal activities. There is some difference between a gambler and such a dishonest person. Gambling establishments try to keep a special eye on such clients. Because they also know that dishonest people can use their platform. However, some casino companies are known to support such activities. And as a result of their flexibility, some dishonest people are committing crimes like money laundering. I am sure there are many who gamble only to hide their money. However, as governments are aware, these types of crimes have reduced a lot.

[LUCKMCFLY]

casinos will end up being a bit more covered than mixers
people can use them as mixers but since they have a different "raison de etre" they can get less coverage
I wonder if there was ever a big operation regarding online casinos and money laundering

I think that now things are very different for casinos, previously I think that money laundering could have been done, but I'm talking about the year 207 to 2020, but since the mandatory KYC was implemented, it is not a business to do so, for anyone, at least those who handle a lot of money and large amounts, let's suppose the mafias, drug traffickers, they handle and launder their money with fiat money, they don't take risks, I know because I live in an area where they do things like that, and one already knows why sometimes they do it in public and no one dares to even look, because it is very dangerous, in fact the governments do the money laundering shamelessly and it is with fiat money, they don't use casinos.

[$weetne$$]

It is true that nowadays, there are several restrictions imposed by the casino due to AML/KYC laws, but in the beginning, that didn't exist (online-casinos).
This can be done even by people who have no intention of doing so. But that's the nature of cryptocurrencies, so like it or not, it's difficult for authorities to track the funds (even if the person isn't doing anything outside of their country's tax laws).

It is possibly because cryptocurrency are anonymous and anybody can use a no KYC casino for money laundering and nobody will know unless they get caught and an investigation is done. Before casinos starting making KYC to be compulsory, there will be some people that were using it for money laundering and other illegal things. The implementation of KYC has reduced everything that got to do with money laundering activities. There could still be some little activities going on but it would not be very obvious as the people doing this will use all the tricks that they know to hid anytime that they are doing. There are some gamblers that are using casinos to avoid paying taxes because the government would not know the profits they have as they deposit and withdraw through cryptocurrency therefore their finances is not traceable. People will do anything not to pay taxes because they feel their money is not being used well.

[Forsyth Jones]

Some companies have internal software developed on demand to research some data obtained by the buyer/client, I don't know if casinos have this.

Some searches and monitoring that these software do is to look for criminal records, previous addresses, debts, etc.

Of course, depending on the country, this personal information is easier or more difficult to obtain.

[Orpichukwu]

So this is big news as the criminals tries to hide it in a casino but I don't think that he can get away with it since Stake requires KYC and so they can go and trace it and maybe cooperate with the authorities to arrest this group.

Lesson here is that do not used casino to launder money.

Is KYC mandatory at stake? It's possible for one to play on stake and make some withdrawals until they reach a certain limit, or they may request it from you as the gambler.
 
I don't know how strict Stake's KYC is, but if it undergoes manual verification, I believe it's vulnerable to identity theft. With the current level of identity theft, I think anyone who wants to hide money can buy stolen ID information online and use it to pass KYC on any platform they want to use for money laundering."

[justdimin]

It is true that nowadays, there are several restrictions imposed by the casino due to AML/KYC laws, but in the beginning, that didn't exist (online-casinos).

There have certainly been cases where people have used casinos (and even exchanges) to hide/shuffle the origin of funds, 'cause when you deposit crypto on a platform, your link to the platform's address ends and when you go to withdraw, you withdraw funds from different origin (from other customers). Unless the platform keeps deposit/withdrawal logs of all user operations and provides them to authorities when requested.

This can be done even by people who have no intention of doing so. But that's the nature of cryptocurrencies, so like it or not, it's difficult for authorities to track the funds (even if the person isn't doing anything outside of their country's tax laws).

This is exactly why some of the casinos started to ask KYC from people. Not all of them asks it, but there are some out there who does it, and the reason for why they are asking for it is because they saw a lot of people who hide illegal funds. You might be as simple as a drug dealer, just use a casino as a mixer basically, and they do not want to be a part of it.

This is of course still possible on casinos that do not ask for your KYC, but if the money comes from an illegal source they are aware, they will notify the authorities and freeze your account and give your money to the law enforcement instead, so whoever does it still takes a risk. So answer is, yes some people have used it to hide the origin of their funds.