Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate his Department has made of the amount of money is laundered through fixed odds betting terminals in each of the last three years.

[Three licensing objectives in the Gambling Act 2005 underpin the regulation of Gambling in Great Britain. The first licensing objective is "preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder or being used to support crime". Consequently] all operators licensed by the Gambling Commission are required - as a condition of their operating licence - to put in place effective systems to identify and prevent criminal spend.

The Gambling Commission has dealt with a number of cases of potential money laundering, mainly involving criminal "lifestyle" spend, connected to Category B2 ('FOBT') gaming machines. It has also dealt with some cases involving other forms of gambling including remote betting, non-remote casino and “ticket in ticket out” (TITO) facilities in connection with gaming machines.

The Gambling Commission and the Government are continuing to work across the gambling industry to further strengthen processes and procedures to identify and prevent money laundering.