Your Input Please Source of Income Requests

[Dwyer]

I do wonder about all of this, and where it comes to an end.

I have been gambling recently on Bitcoin casinos. Yes usually licensed god knows where. And yes usually not a great deal of recourse should something go badly wrong.

But choose a reputable one, and its actually kind of....perfect. Instant deposits, instant withdrawals. No bank, or middle man to hold your money. No paypal, no skrill. You are solely in control of your money. Nobody can seize it or freeze/ otherwise make demands. Its a currency you can easily exchange to sterling/ euros. Deposit to your wallet using a Bitcoin ATM/ withdraw your winnings from the Bitcoin ATM. Or spend the coin online, many places take it now.

My main point here is......I see why the government/ banks are terrified of Bitcoin now. They have no control, at all. And if i was Mr. money launderer, I would only use Bitcoin. Its completely anonymous.

If anything, all of this serves to do one thing only.....some punters will move onto Bitcoin casinos, as will the criminals (if 90% of them are not already doing so tbh), and they have the exact same problem, but magnified many times over.

 

[t4llek]

It's the usual mess. The UKGC is technically a QUANGO (Quasi-Autonomous Non Governmental Organization) and was created to administer the UK gambling sector. It cannot pass laws or act in any way to breach rights under existing laws. It issues directives which should be in line with various bits of UK/EUSSR legislation such as advertising, age restrictions, money laundering, fair contracts etc.

The problem is that of inexperience and lack of legal knowledge which leads to vague and often unspecific guidelines for licensees. You can see examples of this in that it took them 10 years to simply apply fair advertising to casinos, and only now is gradually ensuring fair terms in accordance with existing laws and regulations in other sectors such as the financial one.

Money laundering is a complex issue and if you check out the UKGC directives to summarize they simply say one thing - the casinos must ensure they know the source of a player's funds when accepting a higher than average amount of turnover. There is NO fixed or stipulated threshold for this (unlike the 2100 euro KYC one) and little guidance so each casino acts on instinct or its own private criteria which differ across brands and therein lies the problem.

We've witnessed erratic thresholds, inconsistent proof between casinos regarding how many and what sort of statements they require and when they ask, although it seems that to ensure the player provides the info and doesn't simply fail to complete the request and disappear never to play there again they are DELIBERATELY targeting the requests on occasion of a withdrawal. This pressurizes or almost blackmails the player into doing it and taking away their choice of walking away at that juncture!!

Surely the amount of DEPOSITS (along with suspicious deposit/withdrawal patterns) will be indicative of a launderer? So why always ask a player when they win, even after losing a big succession of deposits beforehand as it's obvious that if they've lost a large amount over time that they certainly ain't laundering cash - a real launderer will ensure little margin between running deposits and withdrawals and certainly won't bust deposit after deposit. Criminals expect to pay 10-20% to launder large amounts of money so a player deviating from that net figure will almost certainly not be up to no good....

This is the point, they will surely keep their hands wide open to any incoming deposits , oh but u requested a cashout? fu my friend lets see where that money came from because now it is important!! just a huge cluster**** .

 

[Harry_BKK]

Out of all the 'impartial' government ombudsmen, the ICO seem to be okay, could this end up as a battle between the ICO and the ukgc?

BTW does anybody know when the moderation for new member's messages ends? No its okay i don't intend to spam casino links its just makes me feel i'am under heavy suspicion as i thought after your first three messages the moderation isn't required.

Send Brian (Casinomeister) a PM to check. Usually, only the first few posts are moderated.

 

[mack341]

Thanks Harry, I wondered how I could get it checked, not every post is getting moderated only some I'll PM Brian tomorrow then.

 

[dionysus]

Thanks Harry, I wondered how I could get it checked, not every post is getting moderated only some I'll PM Brian tomorrow then.

You can also now flag Bryan to a specific post by adding an ampersand before his name thusly - @Casinomeister

 

[Casinomeister]

Checking...
It should only be the first 3 messages.

 

[mack341]

Checking...
It should only be the first 3 messages.

Thanks Brian, just like to say I'm really enjoying the forum and the whole casinomeister site is top notch.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Out of all the 'impartial' government ombudsmen, the ICO seem to be okay, could this end up as a battle between the ICO and the ukgc?

BTW does anybody know when the moderation for new member's messages ends? No its okay i don't intend to spam casino links its just makes me feel i'am under heavy suspicion as i thought after your first three messages the moderation isn't required.

I think this is the only way to resolve this. The casinos say they have no choice but to stick to the regulations, but in some cases they are demanding that players supply the personal details of third parties, yet according to the ICO this is against the DPA, and only "law enforcement agencies" can legally demand data outside the remit of the DPA, such as the police demanding access to a suspect's banking and tax data. A casino compliance team is NOT a "law enforcement agency", even if it seems to act like one in the view of players.

Where a player DID supply personal data of third parties, and the casino accepted it, it could be a "ticking timebomb" for said casino in that should anything go wrong, an unrelated third party would be the one contacting the ICO about their data having leaked from a company that had no legal right to have had it in the first place. They may find out when an unscrupulous employee sells the data to an equally unscrupulous affiliate who then uses it to send spam.