The Hong Kong Jockey Club one of the oldest jockey clubs in the world established in 1884 pointed out to threats to the integrity of horse racing and bookmaking posed by cryptocurrency.
The reach of unregulated better markets continues to grow and evolve and the adoption by these illegal markers and their use of cryptocurrency.
The HKJC and was granted a Royal Charter in 1959 and renamed “The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club” and has fought for honesty and integrity in all aspect of racing.
Unlawful Betting
Cryptocurrency has given these unlawful betting businesses wider reach as they do not need to have cash to discreetly process their bets.
The unregulated markets allows these criminals to open the doors to race fixing and other crimes that could damage the reputation of horse racking bookmaking.
The Jockey club said:
“Let’s be clear – the greatest betting integrity threat to racing are jockeys and trainers stopping horses from winning and betting on them to lose on the illegal market.
They can do this just with a couple of clicks on Citibet, which provides huge liquidity.”
On a funny note
On a funny note, the Irish Times reported that a major drug deal lost the codes to close to 60 millions dollars in drug money. The dealer needed a safe place to store his codes and placed them inside his favorite fishing rod, which has gone missing.
The Irish version of the FBI, the Criminal Assets Bureau took control of 12 wallets that hold 6000 bitcoins but they can not be accessed with the missing codes. They are now hoping one day in the future, that new technology will give them a way to access the accounts and retrieve the funds.
Global Acceptance of Cryptocurrency
With the global acceptance of digital assets and the adoption of blockchain by governments and banks we all know the benefits of new technologies, but as fast as they can be used, criminals find faster ways to extort them for their own criminal enterprises. One of the largest risks associated with cryptocurrency is the ability of criminals, especially terrorists to use these technologies to their benefit, leaving law enforcement always playing catch up.
Supporting Terrorism
Given the key role of funding in supporting terrorist operations, counterterrorism efforts—in particular, the subfield of counterterrorism finance (CTF)—often focus on tracking the flow of money through bank accounts and preventing financial transactions that might be used to support attacks and other terrorist activities. (Rand Group Report). Even though this is a distinct possibility to date there has been very little proof of the use of bitcoin or any altcoin to fund terrorist activity on a large scale.
Europol Report
On the other hand a report by Europol showed that bitcoin was used in over 40% of high-profile investigations of criminal activity. It seems though that drug dealers around the globe are finding cryptocurrency better than cash. They do not need to hide the money in stash houses or in secret locations. They can store them on wallets on their computers and use passwords that they can easily remember to access encrypted keys.
An Email from a dealer
A recent case highlighted the use of bitcoin in drug dealing after a dealer sent out a email message to his customers. The messaged stated:
“We have switched to bitcoin payments only. Now you will enjoy a 10 percent less price tag on all products,” it read. The dealer added, “Good part is that paying by bitcoin you can order as much as you like with no limit.” (CNBC)