EU AMLA Asks Gambling Operators to Help Shape New Anti-Money Laundering Rulebook

The European Union's new Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) is asking gambling operators to help write the rules that will govern how they are policed. AMLA has opened a public consultation, running from 13 July to 27 September 2026, on a draft standard that sets out how supervisory authorities will assess money laundering and terrorist financing risk across non-financial sectors, gambling among them. National gambling regulators in Sweden and Malta are now urging their licensees to submit written feedback before the window closes, because the document will shape day-to-day supervision for years.

For online and retail gambling firms across the bloc, this is the moment when a still-forming EU compliance architecture is soft enough to influence. Once AMLA finalises its regulatory technical standards and hands them to the European Commission, the risk methodology hardens into binding practice. Operators who sit out the consultation will inherit whatever the banks, law firms and other obliged entities argue for in their place.

What exactly is AMLA asking gambling operators to do?

AMLA has invited stakeholders, including licensed gambling companies, to comment on a draft Regulatory Technical Standard (RTS) that defines the methodology supervisors use to classify the money laundering and terrorist financing risk of the entities they oversee. The consultation covers how risk profiling and risk-based supervision will work for the non-financial sector, which explicitly includes both online and land-based gambling operations. The feedback period is open from 13 July to 27 September 2026, according to reporting by SBC News, which broke the call to the sector.

In plain terms, the RTS is not about how a casino checks an individual customer. It is about how a national regulator decides which casinos, sportsbooks and gaming halls are high risk, how often they should be inspected, and how supervisory attention is allocated across a market. That upstream methodology determines the pressure every operator feels downstream.

Key facts at a glance

• Who: AMLA, the EU Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, established under Regulation (EU) 2024/1620 and headquartered in Frankfurt.
• What: A public consultation on a draft RTS setting the risk-assessment methodology for supervising non-financial obliged entities, including gambling.
• When: Feedback window open 13 July to 27 September 2026.
• Who is pushing operators to respond: Sweden's Spelinspektionen and the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA).
• Why it matters: The methodology will drive how intensively each operator is supervised once AMLA's single rulebook takes effect.

What is AMLA and why does it suddenly matter to gambling?

AMLA is the centrepiece of the EU's 2024 anti-money laundering reform package. Created by Regulation (EU) 2024/1620, it is designed to end the patchwork in which 27 member states interpreted AML obligations differently. The authority is building a single rulebook of directly applicable standards, and it will directly supervise a first tranche of the highest-risk financial institutions while coordinating national supervisors everywhere else.

Gambling is squarely inside the perimeter. Under the EU's harmonised framework, providers of gambling services are obliged entities alongside banks, crypto firms, real-estate agents and, in a notable addition, professional football clubs. That means the standards AMLA is drafting for customer due diligence, risk assessment and supervision apply to operators, not just to the financial sector that dominates the headlines.

How does this consultation fit into AMLA's wider 2026 push?

The July call is one thread in a dense year of AMLA rule-making. The authority launched public consultations on 9 February 2026 covering three draft technical standards: customer due diligence under Article 28 of the AML Regulation, pecuniary sanctions and administrative measures under the sixth AML Directive, and the criteria for identifying business relationships, occasional transactions and lower transaction thresholds under Article 19 of the AML Regulation. Feedback deadlines for that batch fell on 9 March and 8 May 2026, with AMLA required to submit final versions to the European Commission by July 2026.

Further consultations followed on group-wide AML requirements and on business-wide risk assessment guidelines, with public hearings held in May 2026 and feedback deadlines in June and July. The 13 July to 27 September window on supervisory risk methodology is the latest instalment, and it is the one that most directly determines how gambling firms will be ranked and inspected.

Why are Sweden and Malta telling operators to respond?

The clearest signal has come from national gambling regulators. Sweden's Spelinspektionen endorsed the consultation and encouraged licensed operators to engage, framing participation as a chance to make the rules more workable and to strengthen the credibility of AML safeguards across member states. The Swedish regulator has already urged licensees to weigh in on the earlier AMLA consultations on sanctions, transaction definitions and customer due diligence.

Malta, home to one of Europe's largest concentrations of licensed online operators, has done the same. The Malta Gaming Authority issued a notice informing stakeholders of AMLA's public consultations on draft AML and CFT regulatory standards and guidelines, encouraging operators with sector-specific concerns to submit written feedback. When two of the EU's most influential gambling regulators both nudge their licensees toward the same consultation, it is a strong tell that the sector's compliance burden is about to be recalibrated.

What could the new risk methodology change in practice?

A risk-based supervision standard sounds abstract, but its effects are concrete. It sets the inputs a supervisor weighs when deciding whether an operator is low, medium or high risk: factors such as product mix, customer geography, payment methods, transaction volumes and past compliance history. The higher the assigned risk, the more frequent and intrusive the supervisory contact, from data requests to on-site inspections.

For operators, the argument to make during consultation is proportionality. AMLA's drafting has so far emphasised avoiding disproportionate burdens on non-financial sectors, and in its earlier work the authority indicated it had not identified additional risks that would justify lower transaction thresholds beyond those already set in the AML Regulation. Gambling firms that can show where a financial-sector-shaped rule fits their business poorly have a genuine opening to influence the final text.

Which parts of the rulebook are already taking shape?

Beyond supervision, AMLA's customer due diligence proposals hint at where compliance teams should prepare. Draft standards have clarified documentation expected for powers of representation, permitted the reuse of verified data within a single entity or group, and prioritised remote identity verification solutions that comply with the EU's eIDAS framework. For online operators that onboard customers digitally at scale, the direction of travel toward standardised, reusable, eIDAS-aligned verification is significant and broadly favourable.

What is the risk of not engaging?

The cost of staying silent is that the methodology gets calibrated to sectors with louder voices. Banks, payment institutions and large law firms are heavily resourced consultation participants. If gambling operators do not document how their risk profile differs, the final RTS may treat a regulated sportsbook the same way it treats a private bank. Given that several European jurisdictions have already levelled substantial AML penalties on gambling operators in recent years, an ill-fitting supervisory model is not a hypothetical concern.

How does this connect to the EU's broader AML enforcement drive?

AMLA's rule-making does not sit in isolation. It arrives alongside intensifying enforcement against illegal and non-compliant gambling across Europe, from site-blocking programmes to cross-border operations targeting unlicensed operators. A harmonised risk methodology is the supervisory backbone that makes coordinated enforcement possible, letting national authorities speak a common language about which operators warrant scrutiny. For compliant operators, a clear and proportionate standard is an asset. For the grey market, it narrows the room to arbitrage weak spots between member states.

What should operators do now?

Compliance and legal teams should read the draft RTS, map it against their own onboarding, monitoring and reporting stack, and prepare a written response before 27 September 2026. Firms licensed in Sweden or Malta can coordinate through their national regulators, both of which have signalled they want industry input. Trade bodies offer another route to a collective submission that carries more weight than a single operator's letter. The window to shape the rules, rather than simply absorb them, closes at the end of September.

Frequently asked questions

What is AMLA?

AMLA is the EU's Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, created by Regulation (EU) 2024/1620 and based in Frankfurt. It is building a single AML rulebook for the bloc and will directly supervise the highest-risk financial entities while coordinating national supervisors.

Does AMLA regulate gambling companies?

Gambling operators are obliged entities under the EU's harmonised AML framework, so AMLA's standards on due diligence, risk assessment and supervision apply to them. Day-to-day supervision of most gambling firms remains with national regulators, guided by AMLA's common rules.

When does the gambling AML consultation close?

The consultation on the supervisory risk-assessment methodology is open from 13 July to 27 September 2026, according to reporting by SBC News.

Why are Sweden and Malta involved?

Spelinspektionen and the Malta Gaming Authority have both urged their licensed operators to submit feedback, viewing industry input as a way to make the rules more workable and to reflect sector-specific realities before the standards are finalised.

What happens after the consultation closes?

AMLA reviews the responses, finalises the technical standards and submits them to the European Commission, after which they become part of the EU's binding AML rulebook and inform how national supervisors assess and inspect operators.

Updated July 2026.

Sources and further reading: SBC News: EU calls on gambling licences to shape common AML architecture, AMLA public consultations, and Malta Gaming Authority stakeholder notice.