In March 2022, AUSTRAC embarked on a national educational campaign to help pubs and clubs stop criminals laundering proceeds of crime through electronic gaming machines.

The main purpose of the campaign is to ensure pubs and clubs are sufficiently supported to comply with their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) obligations.

To date, AUSTRAC has visited over 200 sites with coverage of over 500 individual venues in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT.

The visits promoted AUSTRAC’s Regulatory Guide for Pubs and Clubs that was published in December last year and covered key areas including ML/TF risks faced by sector, transaction monitoring programs, suspicious matter reporting, ML/TF risk awareness training and tipping off. They were also an opportunity for AUSTRAC to answer AML/CTF obligations questions specific to the operation of each of the businesses.

The campaign has been supported and promoted by the various industry peak bodies. State gaming regulators also participated in some of the visits.

AUSTRAC will continue to work with the pubs and clubs sector and release additional guidance resulting from the visits in the near future.