WILLEMSTAD – Uncertainty over the real owners of Curaçao-licensed gambling companies could create vulnerabilities to money laundering and organized crime, financial experts consulted as part of an international investigation into the island's gambling sector have warned.
The warning comes from Follow the Money's Casino Secrets investigation, based on confidential Curaçao Gaming Authority documents obtained by cybersecurity researcher Lilith Wittmann.
The investigation alleges that Curaçao regulators issued licenses in cases where questions remained about who actually owned or controlled the applicant.
FTM says some files showed uncertainty about the source of owners' wealth, while other applicants appeared to have insufficient personal wealth to credibly be the true beneficial owners of the businesses they claimed to control.
Forensic-accountancy professor Marcel Pheijffer told FTM that gambling is particularly susceptible to money laundering, especially when cryptocurrency transactions are involved.
Pheijffer described it as “remarkable” that the CGA repeatedly granted licenses before companies had supplied information regulators themselves considered important.
Offshore-finance expert Jan van Koningsveld stressed that Curaçao's new legislation requires regulators to establish, as far as possible, the identities and involvement of owners and decision-makers.
The reason goes beyond administrative transparency.
According to Van Koningsveld, concealed ownership creates significant money-laundering risks and can potentially allow organized criminal networks to influence companies or even become their owners.
The warnings strike at the central objective of Curaçao's gambling reforms.
For decades, Curaçao's online gambling sector operated under a system in which the government granted master licenses to a small number of private companies. Those companies then provided sublicenses to international operators with limited direct government supervision.
Curaçao overhauled that structure in 2024, introducing direct state supervision through the Curaçao Gaming Authority.
However, FTM's investigation argues that problems have continued into the new system.
The strongest criticism cited in the investigation came from Björn Fuchs, chairman of Dutch online gambling trade association VNLOK.
Fuchs told FTM that Curaçao's new gambling law appeared to be “failing miserably.” He called for tougher scrutiny of ownership, integrity and financial health and argued that licenses should be rejected when serious warning signs remain unresolved.
The Curaçao Gaming Authority takes a different position.
The regulator told FTM that the sector remains in transition and that, under the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, companies were deliberately given an opportunity to comply with the new requirements step by step rather than having all standards imposed immediately.
It also said the existence of a question or uncertainty should not automatically result in the refusal or termination of a license.
The competing positions reveal what may become the central political question arising from the Casino Secrets investigation.
Curaçao has replaced the old licensing structure and established direct government oversight. The question now is whether that oversight is sufficiently rigorous to ensure that authorities know who ultimately controls the companies carrying Curaçao's name into gambling markets around the world.
Source: Follow the Money, “Curaçao’s secretive gambling industry exposed in leak,” David Davidson, Sjors Hofstede and Lukas Kotkamp; reporting by Dick Drayer; expert commentary from Marcel Pheijffer, Jan van Koningsveld and Björn Fuchs.