Digital gambling is growing year after year at a very fast pace. If we consider the Italian case alone, the growth has been almost 60% since 2015, the 2017 collection exceeded 25 billion euros and the sector now represents more than 20% of the entire market.
These impressive figures correspond to an incalculable number of transactions, deposits and withdrawals, steps in which various attempts to defraud the State can be hidden. On this point it is worth making a premise: fraud against players cannot occur by gaming operators, if they have received the license from the regulatory body.
The stringent and severe regulation by the Customs and Monopolies Agencies (ADM ex AAMS) requires that there be a certification of the games by SOGEI, an internal company of the Ministry of Economy and Finance that examines each game and, if necessary, evaluates any appeals by the players.
- Gambling Fraud in Italy
Online gambling is well suited to fraudulent practices, some more than others such as the so-called skill games, card games like briscola or poker, games where only a few people sit at the table and it is easy to direct the course of the game (if you have agreed on it beforehand).
Let's say two players who are accomplices challenge each other in a one-on-one game, depositing 10 euros each, forming a pot of 20 euros from which 2 are subtracted (assuming a 10% game commission). In practice, the two players can launder a certain amount of money by "paying" the commission established by the operator.
An operation that on these sums is practically impossible to intercept, the indicators that can be helpful are the frequency of play of these accounts, games with particularly high figures, the recurrence of particular days in which this sort of appointment takes place.
This phenomenon is technically called 'chip dumping', as one of the two players ends up "giving away" his chips to the other regardless of the outcome of the game.
Another type of fraud that has existed since the digital beginnings of gambling: multi-accounting. In practice, the player tries to create multiple accounts that can be traced back to him, with the same operator, to sit at the same gaming table occupying multiple seats. These are scams that increase in sophistication along with technological progress. Today, it is very simple to identify the IP address of an account, and to know if others have already signed up from that address, but there are also software that allow you to hide your IP.
- What do Italian remote gaming operators need to automate?
To better govern such a large market, Italy has implemented to the letter the anti-money laundering directives established by the European Union and can boast, in this specific case of its jurisprudence, a modern and effective law.
The IV Anti-Money Laundering Directive was issued by the EU in 2015, the Strasbourg chamber worked with a certain speed under the weight of the attacks of the first months of that year which, according to the investigations, could have been financed also through the transfer of money to online gambling accounts, in the ways we have illustrated above.
With the V Anti-Money Laundering Directive, published in 2018, few changes are made to the law, mainly an extension of validity to other areas of application. Both directives focus on the controls that must be carried out and automated by remote gaming operators and on the free circulation of data found by the control bodies, for a more useful and community-based approach to fighting the problem.
- Legislative Decree no. 90 of 25 May 2017
With Legislative Decree no. 90 of 25 May 2017 Italian case law implements both European Union anti-money laundering directives and modifies Legislative Decree no. 231 of 21 November 2007. These changes focus on what type of controls game providers must provide to automate.
In particular, with reference to online gambling, it is established that the following should be examined:
the status of gaming accounts and in particular those suspended and those on which there are significant movements;
- gaming accounts characterised by an anomalous concentration of winnings or losses in a limited period of time, especially if they occur on games in which there is interaction between players;
- the type of charging tools used;
- the frequency and time slots of gaming account top-up transactions;
- the identification of anomalies in the use of the gaming account as can be deduced from the ratio between deposits and withdrawals.
With regards to the control of the real identity behind the game accounts, it is established that:
- proceed with the identification and verification of the identity of each customer not only when opening a gaming account but also at the time of any changes (as per article 24 of law 7 July 2009, n. 88);
- allow gaming account top-ups only to those who hold ownership and are in possession of a means of payment suitable for ensuring full traceability of the financial flows connected to gaming operations;
- acquire and store, for a period of ten years from the relevant acquisition, in full compliance with the provisions set forth by the code on the protection of personal data.
EDITORIAL TEAM
