The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) ordered licensed gaming operators to enhance their anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism counter-financing practices after declaring the country’s gambling industry to be at a high level of risk of illegal activity.
As of July 13, PAGCOR asserted that the operators should use the results from its second assessment of the casino sector as a basis for carrying out their internal assessments and compliance measures against money laundering.
The assessment took place on June 25 and covers the period between 2021 and 2024.
The assessment stated:
The sector remains materially exposed to proceeds from serious predicate crimes, particularly where high-value transactions, cash activity, VIP or junket relationships, electronic gaming, remote channels, or weak controls are present.
Despite ranking the casino sector’s possibility of involvement in money laundering as high as possible and of terrorism financing as medium-high, PAGCOR admitted that no instances of such activity involving PGACOR-regulated casinos had been revealed in the past years.
PAGCOR believes that the high possibility of money laundering is due to such aspects of the gambling business as cash transactions, currency conversion activities, dealings with clients who pose a high risk, multi-channel operations and lack of cohesive cooperation between the respective parties.
PAGCOR has instructed operators to review and strengthen customer due diligence procedures, source-of-funds verification, transaction monitoring, and oversight of VIP, junket, remote gaming and high-value customer relationships.