WILLEMSTAD – The Curaçao Gaming Authority repeatedly approved gambling licenses even after its own assessors identified unanswered questions about applicants, according to confidential regulatory records examined by investigative platform Follow the Money.
The findings form part of the international “Casino Secrets” investigation by FTM journalists David Davidson, Sjors Hofstede and Lukas Kotkamp, with reporting from Curaçao by Dick Drayer.
According to FTM, dozens of applications reviewed by its journalists showed a recurring pattern: regulatory assessors identified potentially serious issues, companies responded incompletely or vaguely, and the final recommendation nevertheless stated that the license could be granted.
In some cases approval was conditional on additional information being supplied, but FTM reports that the requested information was subsequently not provided.
Marcel Pheijffer, professor of forensic accountancy at Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands, examined several assessments at FTM's request.
Pheijffer concluded that licenses had been granted while significant questions remained unresolved.
“In the Dutch context, that approach would not be possible,” Pheijffer told FTM, adding that he believed such an approach should not occur elsewhere either.
The leaked records reportedly contained cases in which regulators could not clearly determine the source of an owner's wealth. In other cases, declared owners appeared to have insufficient financial means to convincingly explain their purported ownership of gambling businesses, according to FTM.
Those discrepancies raised the possibility that the people named on paper might not necessarily be the individuals exercising ultimate control.
This is particularly important because identifying ultimate beneficial owners is a central safeguard against money laundering and hidden criminal influence.
Jan van Koningsveld, an expert in offshore finance consulted by FTM, said Curaçao's new gambling legislation requires regulators, as far as possible, to establish the identity, existence and involvement of owners and decision-makers.
He warned that concealed ownership could create money-laundering risks and potentially allow organized criminal networks to influence or own gambling businesses.
The Curaçao Gaming Authority defended its approach by pointing to the transition from the old licensing system to the new regulatory framework.
According to the CGA, under the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, authorities decided against imposing every new requirement simultaneously and instead allowed operators to comply progressively.
The regulator said its principle was not to immediately reject an application or terminate existing activities whenever a question or uncertainty emerged.
Pheijffer rejected the transition period as sufficient justification, telling FTM that a regulator should investigate before acting rather than granting approval first and resolving questions later.
The findings place renewed attention on whether Curaçao's regulatory overhaul has gone far enough in addressing weaknesses that accumulated during nearly three decades of largely private oversight of online gambling.
Source: Follow the Money/“Casino Secrets,” David Davidson, Sjors Hofstede and Lukas Kotkamp; reporting in Curaçao by Dick Drayer; expert analysis by Marcel Pheijffer and Jan van Koningsveld.