Action Money

About Action Money

In 2021, I joined an investment fund focused on startups harnessing AI and machine learning. In the process, I had a chance encounter with an iGaming investor. This sparked a conversation that would change the course of my career. He pointed out that iGaming was dramatically underutilising its data potential. There was an opportunity here, and once we began exploring it, the thread just kept unravelling.

I started out as an adviser with the Playa, but was appointed the company’s CEO in 2024, a position I did not expect to find myself in, but an opportunity I have embraced with open arms. As a company, we provide AI personalisation solutions to businesses, something that was totally new to the market.

Coming from the outside, I needed to gather a team to help steer the ship. In the two years since I took on the role, I have been blessed to work with some of the sharpest minds in the industry and I couldn’t be prouder of what we have achieved so far.

About Action Money

It finds that online gaming shows more documented terrorist financing activity than gambling, although proliferation financing risks remain limited across both sectors.

Cash, e-wallets, mobile money and virtual assets emerge as the payment methods most vulnerable to abuse. This is particularly true where operators use them to structure deposits below reporting thresholds. 

Giles Thomson, FATF president, said unregulated sectors risk becoming “attractive gateways for fraudsters, professional money launderers and organised criminal networks”. He called on governments to strengthen oversight, crack down on illegal and offshore operators and deepen public-private cooperation. 

About Action Money

Harris Tsangarides, executive director of the Gaming & Casino Supervision Commission, said his department had noticed spikes in gambling activity coinciding with GMI payment dates, prompting the regulator to consider “technical solution” to cross-reference GMI beneficiary lists with casino membership records.

An issue raised by Giannis Vasiliadis, director of WBAS, was the limited access to recipients’ banking information. This limited data can hint at suspicious activity but cannot conclusively verify gambling transactions.

Data Protection Commissioner Maria Christofidou said her office had reevaluated a 2022 legal opinion and now recognised a potential legal basis for more granular access to banking information.