Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make representations to the EU Commission on including bookmakers within the scope of the fourth money laundering directive.

The Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (“the Directive”) was formally adopted in June 2015, and will be transposed into national law by June 2017. The Directive extends the scope of the UK’s Money Laundering Regulations 2007 to cover all gambling providers.

The Government can exempt providers of certain gambling services from the requirements laid down in the Directive on the basis of proven low risk posed by the nature and scale of operations. Any exemption will need to take account of a risk assessment that includes factors such as the degree of vulnerability of the transaction and the payment methods.

We will be consulting on which sectors of the gambling sector can be proven to be low risk as part of the transposition process and we will be legislating accordingly. The Government plans to publish a consultation on the changes by the end of this year, and this will run for a full 12 weeks.