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Comment by firloop | Hacker News Reader

If you want to launder money with impunity, don't do it in crypto. Just be a megabank.

See: https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/, or Matt Taibbi's writeup of it: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/revenge-of-the-money-launderer...

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The easiest way to be above the law is to have a lot of money and give some of it to the right people.

That would probably mean politicians that would push for laws making your life easier. Like lower taxation / easier avoidance, support for complex blurry ownership structures etc. Those on top are the best bet.

Its interesting that neither US nor Europe does see anything wrong with direct monetary sponsorship of politicians before elections (on top of lobbyists which are seem to be proper legal bribing middlemen)

Or just use slot machines like everyone else.

Is this effective anymore? AFAIK nowadays chips can be tracked on an individual basis, so it'd be very hard to pull off (assuming the casino isn't in on it).

random search: https://www.protiviti.com/US-en/insights/higher-stakes-casin...

>Examples of red flags include:

>• Customer transfers chips to other individuals to cash out

>• Customer redeems chips for casino checks that amount to significantly more than the amount of funds deposited with no apparent winnings to account for the additional amount

>• Customer departs casino without cashing out chips, an activity referred to as “chip walking.”

I feel like similar to the bank case, the key is to be a big enough high-roller that the casino helps you skirt the regulations. Tough times for the small time, mom-and-pop money launderer these days I suppose.

Not really. It's not like gambling and friends in high places are the only options when it comes to laundering. All you need is something that allows you to funnel small and untraceable revenue streams, while spending as few money as possible, through a business that looks legitimate from the outside.

Now, obviously the tax authorities around the Globe are probably far more experienced than I am when it comes to things like this, and I don't think it's a coincidence that there's governmental resistance to cryptocurrencies; they authorities are busy trying to get rid of cash already, and cryptocurrencies are additional vectors allowing anonymous transactions.

Why do chips come into it? Isn’t the process just:

1) Insert cash into slot machine. Play through the cash for a while, losing x%

2) Cash out (machine gives you a printed ticket to take to the casino desk). Now you have a paper trail showing that you won $ from a casino, giving the money a legitimate source.

Unless you hit jackpot/777/3lemons the question will be how did you come up with the initial amount to put into the machine.

The way to launder money is to have a casino, and then give the illicit cash to random folks and have them lose at the casino.

Based on a recent trip to Vegas, machines that accept cash are now rare.

They don't really have to be common. All you need is a single machine and a disgruntled employee looking the other way.

The most blatantly example I've seen was in Copenhagen, where small gambling dens with slot machines are pretty common. The weed dealers from Pusher Street spent an awful lot of their cash on gambling for some reason. ;)

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