Tabcorp, Australia’s biggest listed bookmaker, disclosed that the country’s financial-crimes watchdog AUSTRAC has opened a formal investigation into whether it was complying with anti-money-laundering (AML) rules and properly monitoring its customers, the Australian Financial Review reported.

Tabcorp told investors the regulator had “serious concerns about its ability to detect and stop money laundering” and that the probe, while at an early stage, was focused on its compliance with AML obligations and its customer-monitoring framework, the AFR reported.

The disclosure follows the the newspaper’s report last week that Tabcorp had banned eight high-profile professional gamblers from its wagering app and venues on the grounds that doing business with them was “outside its risk appetite.” The bookmaker told the affected customers in writing that they were “banned permanently from accessing Tabcorp’s wagering services” for the “purpose of managing and mitigating its risk,” according to the letter quoted by the AFR.

Tabcorp paid A$45 million to settle a previous AUSTRAC action in 2017 after the regulator found that more than 30 accounts had been opened under false names and used to channel fraudulent credit-card funds for organized crime, the news outlet said. 

AUSTRAC is separately pursuing London-listed rival Entain, the operator of the Ladbrokes and Neds brands in Australia, over alleged breaches of anti-money-laundering laws, according to the report. The regulator alleges that Entain allowed 17 high-risk customers to spend A$152 million without proper background checks.