The article is very short on details as to how online gambling is used to launder money. I don't see how they can launder the money through existing online casinos who have stringent documentation standards. Do terrorists just play a couple of spins on a slot then request a payout of their deposit? Or do they set up a casino they control? (in retrospect, I guess the same way they set up brick and mortar businesses as a front.)
Criminals will try several ways till they find one that works for them. In money laundering, they expect to lose a considerable portion of the cash they launder, and may be happy if only 50% or even less of "dirty" money comes back as "clean".
Oddly enough, some stories I see hear would make it EASIER, not HARDER for money to be laundered. These relate to cases where casinos REFUSE to pay back to the method of deposit, but INSIST on a different method. This is a weakness in the system of controls against money laundering, and once noticed, criminals simply need to figure out a way to exploit said weakness.
The problems is that most casinos are not so much worried about "money laundering", even though they often blame this external FATF regulation when having to give an excuse for a choice of payment method. What is number one priority is THEIR security and PROFITABILITY, and if this clashes with guidelines laid down by the FATF, then stuff them.
An example is the curiosity of a load of Playtech casinos taking deposits from Neteller, but insisting on paying withdrawals through a different means. A criminal group might notice this as a weakness in the system, and see therefore that if they could inject "dirty" money into a Neteller account, they could circumvent the normal rules that would have it just coming straight back to that Neteller account, and could then set up an account to receive the withdrawals. This then begins the process of laundering the cash. All that is needed then is a series of transactions from the account receiving the withdrawal to make it hard to establish a connection between the owner details of the depositing Neteller account, and the owner(s) of where the funds sit when "clean". Casinos would indeed get quite a bit of play from the deposits, the LAST thing the criminal wants is to have the accounts audited for "bonus abuse" or "using the casino as a bank". If they are prepared to lose 50% in the process, they can give the casino so much action they end up becoming VIP, but this, strangely, might ruin their scheme, as being a VIP seems to get winnings paid back through Neteller, which they will always have to be pretending is what they wanted in the first place.
As for terrorists doing this, well if criminal organisations can do it, so can terrorists. Naturally, this kind of story, and with "proof", is exactly the kind of thing the USA needs, as it makes their actions, including UIGEA, as a PROVEN method of fighting terrorism, rather than simply protrecting internal interests. This will make UIGEA far more popular with US Citizens, and thus easier to make it acceptable, despite any minor inconvenience it causes to a small number of gamblers among the several hundred million people that need protecting.
