When establishing legal provisions to reduce the risk of money laundering in the gambling sector, the Swiss legislator has clearly recognized that for lottery and sports betting operators, a risk-based approach had to be followed to prevent operators from incurring disproportionate administrative burdens in relation to relatively low risk of money laundering. Operators were therefore obliged to adopt certain due diligence measures when the AML risk presented by a player is more significant. Accordingly, it has been decided to require the operator to verify the identity of the player when winnings occur and the amount of the winnings exceeds a certain threshold, and, for online games, also when substantial deposits are made on the player’s online account.
In pursuing this risk-based approach, the legislator has also considered the specific characteristics and risks of the various games offered by the operator. The same approach has also been adopted for defining increased AML risk and the extent of enhanced due diligence measures to be put in place, which must be appropriate to the risk presented by the business relationship.
However, unlike other countries such as Italy10, the Swiss legislator has not decided to exclude certain categories of games. All winnings, including winnings from scratch cards or draw games, are therefore subject to due diligence measures, above certain thresholds, even though the risk of money laundering is close to inexistant, as the outcome of the game depends purely on chance and the chances of winning are extremely low. Consequently, there can be no real risk of money laundering associated with these games.
The decision was taken not to exclude certain categories of games but to assign them many different thresholds depending on the distribution channel (online or offline). The identity of the player and/or of the beneficial owner have/has to be verified and above which an increased AML risk is triggered if the threshold is exceeded, and this has finally generated significant administrative burden.
10 see DECRETO LEGISLATIVO 21 novembre 2007, n. 231, art. 1, al. 3, let. a https://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:decreto.legislativo:2007;231. Last visited: 28.02.24.