iGaming Daily

00:00
Hello everyone, hope we're all doing okay, hope we've had a good weekend, hope the people who went to the SBC Summit Malta ever got back safely. I'm Ted Orme Clay, editor of SBC News and I'm here with my colleague Victor Kayad, the senior journalist of SBC News and as always Ted Memier, the editor at Larger SBC Media. We've got a couple of quite big developments to talk about here on today's iGaming Daily, sponsored by Optimove.

00:26
So late last week Gibraltar and the UAE were removed from the EU's AML watchlist which should be a pretty positive move for stakeholders in the betting and gaming sectors in both jurisdictions. Gibraltar is of course a very big established hub for European gaming with many bookmakers, casino operators and B2B tech firms registered on the island. And the UAE on the other hand is eyeing up an expansion of its local gaming industry.

00:55
which could see the country become a hub in its own right in the Middle East region and is something that has got a lot of people paying quite close attention to it. So yeah, welcome to the episode and I'm going to have a chat with Ted and Victor about this. So Victor, you broke the story on SBC News last week. Let's just set the stage a bit. What exactly is this AML list that the EU has?

01:22
why a country is placed on it, which countries are currently on it. So it's pretty self-explanatory from the name. The EU's AML list includes countries that the union considers to be of significant financial, to hold significant financial threats. countries that usually are not considered to have enough supervision and enough control over their

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financial risk assessments. The list is there namely to protect the EU's financial ecosystem by listing the countries which are of high risk. The goal, I guess you can say, the end goal is to prevent any existing, to circumvent existing risks and to prevent new risk from arising.

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It's also worth noting that the EU's AML risk is tightly connected to the financial action task forces AML risk. They both are closely aligned together. They both focus on the same issue, money laundering, terrorist financing risks and

02:45
It's sort of the FATF's list sort of takes lead when it comes to which countries are considered a threat and which not and the EU then closely follows on that list. Once there is a change in the FATF's list, then the EU's AML list gets updated with the same changes pretty soon.

03:09
And as is the case with Gibraltar and the UAE, they got delisted from the FATFs list and the EU followed closely by delisting them as well. Yeah, I think it's very important of you to note that, think, isn't it, that this list is closely connected to the FATFs because this is something, this is a topic we've discussed before in iGaming Daily.

03:35
It's something that's been covered on SBC News and on Payment Expert as well, one of our sister sites. The FATF list often has lot of implications for betting and gaming, it? I mean, we saw obviously quite notably Malta, funnily enough, given that Ted and I have just returned from there not long ago, was on the AFTF list for around a year, I think, in 2021, wasn't it? And then Malta, very similar to Gibraltar.

04:01
Probably more significantly than Gibraltar is a very big hub for the European iGaming industry and the online betting industry, both B2C and B2B. So it was quite noticeable that for some time this leading European hub was on the FATF list. the same has happened to Gibraltar, which has obviously now been removed, as you said Victor, has subsequently been removed from the EU list.

04:30
If you could just build on this a bit more for us, Victor, why had Gibraltar been placed on the list and what did it do to secure its removal? Well, to be placed on that list is generally not a good image for you. This means that you're generally lacking enough supervision over your financial ecosystem. is, like I said, increased risk from money laundering.

04:59
You know, there's specific reasons why Gibraltar was listed on the FATF's list. From my research was that it lacked enough supervision, enough action when it comes to seizing assets from criminals who have been inducted and prosecuted, etc. So that was one of the reasons.

05:27
why it was listed. Another reason which is more topical to us is that it lacked enough controls over its online gambling market. Can't stand to be in there. Sorry. This is Ted to our audience. It's jumping in. Look, we're going to kind of rewind back to 2022 and when it was placed abruptly on the the gray list of the AFTF.

05:54
Immediately, Andrew Lyman, was the Gannett Commissioner of Gibraltar, he believed that the reason why Gibraltar had been placed was mainly due to its court processing of cases involving AML rather than any kind of technicalities directly related to the market or liabilities on licensing. part of the problem was that, for example, the AFTF wanted

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the Gibraltar Gaming Association to have a great control of the management of the business, who were sitting or who were the direct controllers of each business that were found to be involved in these AML cases, which Gibraltar just didn't have. It wasn't mandatory to their licensing. And he believed that it was actually more of an update of licensing policies related to gambling rather than the technicalities of the market that had exposed Gibraltar.

06:50
as liable to kind of AML conditions, AMO oversight. There you go. Yeah. And that was when a few, few years back, 2022, he, know, immediately to fall off the charges. And he said that actually much of the same, much of the same principles that were carried over from Malta within carried over to Gibraltar. Yeah. And they quickly, obviously they quickly took action to fix whatever the, uh, the criticism was because they got delisted in 2024, just.

07:18
two years after. And then I think another exposure there, there's that it wasn't necessarily to the kind of the main accounts in Gibraltar. was to do with like secondary businesses and white labels. So again, we're going back to what happened that in the Isle of Man whereby there's a business that applies a license. And at the time, actually, I Gibraltar was trying to kind of limit these businesses of, know, white label ownership and just kind of be more more transparent on who owns what. And these companies can come back and say to them, look,

07:47
These are the managers in charge of the business. I think that's a very interesting point you've raised there Ted about the whole topic of the white labels. Like you say, they've been quite significant in the Isle of Man, have had a lot of scrutiny over them in recent months and recent years. We reported this on SBC News and iGamingExpert and we're about the TGP Europe fallout and the different licenses and white label agreements that we've withdrawn from that.

08:16
That's quite an interesting topic that's been raised across the gambling jurisdictions. The Isle of Man government as well has been putting out some statements over the past year or so about its awareness of the heightened risk of money laundering and terrorist financing threats. I think they've mentioned Southeast Asia as being a particularly troubling region, I guess you could say, one of concern.

08:42
This is something that the United Nations have noted as well, particularly around like crypto casinos and offshore betting operators and anything that these companies might be in out there. junkets as well. So yeah, that's a very interesting point to raise. I mean, just to build on that for us, Ted, how significant would you say this development, the removal of Gibraltar from the list is for the wider international betting and gaming industry? Yes, it's significant.

09:10
As you know, Gibraltar is a home to major B2C and B2B gaming firms and that includes the likes of your Entain, your Evokes and your Bette Victas. And I think this is more important between the relationship between the governor and top licenses that will want to have that kind of redress being taken off the AMO list and for Gibraltar to restore its global reputation. I think it is important.

09:39
However, look in terms of like, does this ease any kind of compliance pressure off these guys? No, because I don't think they necessarily answered the Gibraltar. They answered to all the markets in which they're licensed. So it's multi-jurisdictional here, but I think it's a good fit for Gibraltar just to kind of get to a new platform. Thank you very much, Ted. I think, yeah, I'd agree with you on that point. I think this is definitely more of a significant development for the regulators and the government in Gibraltar.

10:09
More so than is the business is based there, just because the government will see this as a good endorsement of its reputation and its standing as somewhere to do business, somewhere to invest. Yeah, and you got to remember that it's essentially the risking of the whole market in Gibraltar. This means that companies based there will have eased access to EU markets just because of all the...

10:35
The removal of all the administrative red tape when it comes to being on the FATF's list because it involves telling banks to be careful when doing business with companies from certain jurisdictions. So it's definitely a major positive for the businesses stationed there. In that case as well, I there was some stuff that was talked about last week in the SBC Summit where some people were noting that

11:04
Some banks are often reluctant to work with gaming firms, certain gaming firms. So again, like you say, they're Vic to the reputational element of this is quite important. Right, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back to talk about the UAE's potential as a gaming sector and yeah, and its removal from the user list as well. So stay tuned. Welcome back to Our Gaming Daily sponsored by OptiMove. I'm Ted On Clay, I'm here with Victor Coyote and Ted Benmure and we're going to move on from

11:31
the topic we were just talking about in the first half of this episode, which was Gibraltar to the UAE, which is the other jurisdiction that was removed from the EU's AML list recently. So Victor, again, let's sort of set the stage of this one. Why was the UAE included on the EU's AML list? There's too many abbreviations here. And yeah, why was it removed? Is it for pretty similar reasons? Similar reason. This framework remains the same.

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and the criteria that you get listed on the FATF. So, similar reasons, weak AML controls, insufficient supervisory of the local markets. Another thing here that is quite intrinsic to the UAE is that it is a high-value market just because of its...

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just because of its nature. So high value usually brings also high risk. So this is the only specific quality of this market. But other than that, all the other reasons were generally the same. I mean, yeah, the UAE is of course a huge hub for international business. There's so many different developments and projects going on there. And I think this links back to what we were talking about with Gibraltar, but isn't it that

12:55
A lot of this is about reputation and about your appeal to investors, your appeal to businesses. And the UAE is going through an interesting phase at the moment where it's starting to experiment with an expansion of its gaming industry. The country, of course, is a big tourist destination. has a lot of visitors coming through every year, often for commercial reasons.

13:19
They're starting to eye up at the idea of gaming playing a bit of a bigger role in this, aren't they? I mean, we've seen like Wynn resorts have set up, they've got a resort there, haven't they, I think. So mean, Ted, is this something you've been following much lately? Like the UAE's prospects as a gaming hub in the Middle East? Look, where this stands is the UAE is laying the groundwork for a legalised and regulated gaming industry. This vision kind of took off in 2023.

13:47
when it launched the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority that is led by ex MGM chief executive Jim Moran in who he is actively kind of leading the efforts in terms of licensing and setting up a kind of the terms of plug market. There's still kind of no formal kind of agenda or timetable as to when the UAE will apply.

14:10
its gaming framework and how it will apply it. Because you gotta remember that this has to carry across six domains. As stands, they're looking to launch the first project, which is the Wynn Resorts at the Raz Al Qa'iyah Resort. And that would be the first kind of legal casino project in the Gulf. It's a big, project. It carries massive ambitions.

14:39
But it's, think from everyone I've spoken to, it's likely to kind of, it's likely to kind of change in direction at any point. mean, would you say that, I'm just going to again, reference some stuff that we talked about at the SPC summit, Malta last week. And that's the, some people are kind of predicting that the way the UAE is going to progress is that it might end up issuing a license for companies that could function.

15:08
in a similar way to like Malta licenses are used where companies will hold them and operate internationally. So are we seeing, do you reckon we're seeing some parallels here Ted between how the UAE is developing or is potentially developing, I guess we should say, with how Malta and Gibraltar themselves have kind of emerged and set themselves up in Europe? Okay, I'm going to put my notes away on this. Look, there's a lot of easy chat there where they kind of believe that the UAE

15:36
could be the gateway to open up the Asian market for online gaming operators. Now, the majority of Asian jurisdictions for cultural and economic reasons have remained kind of in the gray area in terms of regulated online gambling games. Not all of them, you know, especially with kind of sports betting and online slots. I really don't think that the UAE, just if they sought to become a hob.

16:04
for iGaming, I don't think that it will be applicable to larger markets of your Chinese and your Indians and your Japans or South Korea. I think at the end of the day that those are markets with their own statutes that they will consider their internal factors for launching an online gambling regime and whether they choose to. But however, look, I think that the UAE, you simply have to kind of

16:34
You seem to have to view from a certain kind of standpoint that as Victor said, it's a very, very rich market. again, it's going to carry that kind of interest. It should just carry that interest in that kind of standalone place. I don't think you have to dream that it can do more than it can. You should just take it for what it is really. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting point you raised that said about the prospects of

17:02
betting and gaming across Asia. Like you say, the continent has got some far more political and cultural and economic intricacies than Europe does. If we're just going to make a broad comparison that I think makes the prospect of the UAE being like a hub for the wider region a bit more complicated, right? Where I think the UAE could have a huge impact, I think it would be in the funding.

17:29
and kind of the enterprise of iGaming, especially for games and technology. So I think that could become, it could become the Asia hub there. especially this is about, these are countries that are kind of trying to diversify from kind of petroleum based economies. And I think the kind of you kind of iGaming go, well, okay, if we can become a hub for developing games or developing kind of software solutions and platforms for Asian consumers, I think that's a big take for them.

17:59
But on the regulatory front, just think I don't think it's a play. So on this topic of funding and investment then Victor, just to close us off, do you reckon this removal from these grey lists will be significant to any goals that the UAE might have in this area? Well, it would remove the risk. It would generally make the UAE...

18:24
better looking in the eyes of the international market, in the eyes of investors like we just discussed. Not being associated with these lists is generally considered a good thing. I don't think there's any negatives from it. It also signifies that the UAE is actively engaging with international regulators like the EU and the FATF, which

18:50
Additionally boosts its credibility as a market regardless whether it's gonna target the local consumers or like Ted said is just gonna behave as a help for the as a production hub for these games which we've already seen early movers in that direction recently I think scientific games acquired a license

19:15
lottery to provide lottery technology in the UAE. So we've already seen, I think Ted kind of predicted the way the market might go. We're going to see in the coming years, but I think it's definitely a good development overall and it adds another layer of financial security to an otherwise very attractive investor destination.

19:43
Great stuff, thank you Victor. I think that is all the time we've got for today. Obviously quite a few complicated intricate developments we've talked about here and we'll keep these covered on SBC News and I'm sure our colleagues on iGaming Expert and Payment Expert will do the same as well. So thanks very much Ted and Victor for joining me on this and thanks to all our listeners for tuning in and we'll see you next time.