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The global anti-money laundering watchdog just put the online gambling industry on notice. The Financial Action Task Force released its first comprehensive analysis of money laundering and terrorist financing risks in the gaming and gambling sectors, drawing on data from more than 80 jurisdictions worldwide.
The report, which caps a year-long study, paints a picture of an industry where unlicensed, offshore platforms have become go-to infrastructure for criminals looking to clean dirty money. And the payment rails making it possible, from e-wallets to mobile money to virtual assets, are exactly the ones growing fastest.
What the FATF actually found
The core finding is straightforward: online gambling platforms are being exploited not just for laundering proceeds of crime, but also for terrorist financing and proliferation financing. The FATF introduced a new set of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing of Terrorism risk indicators designed to help regulators and operators spot suspicious behavior.
Some of the red flags are almost comically brazen. The report highlights cases where funds move through gambling platforms with no actual gambling taking place.
Other typologies are more sophisticated. “Smurfing,” where criminals break large sums into many small transactions to duck detection thresholds, is rampant across gambling platforms. Unusually large or coordinated bets that may signal match-fixing also made the list, as did complex ownership structures designed to hide who actually controls a gambling operation.
The FATF also flagged that illegal gambling operations may now overshadow legitimate markets in some jurisdictions.
The payment problem
One of the report’s most consequential sections addresses the payment methods that make gambling-linked money laundering so hard to track. Cash remains a factor, especially in physical gambling venues, but the digital shift has introduced a menu of new vulnerabilities.
E-wallets, mobile money platforms, and virtual assets all get called out as channels that criminals are actively exploiting.
A related FATF report estimated that illegal online gambling proceeds laundered through underground networks could exceed half a billion euros.
Building on earlier warnings
This report didn’t emerge from nowhere. The FATF published findings in July 2025 noting that online gaming platforms were being used to fund terrorist activities. The latest study broadens the scope considerably, connecting gambling-related financial crime to cyber fraud, corruption, and organized crime networks.
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