Ontario Fines NorthStar Gaming CA$100K Over Anti-Money-Laundering Failures
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) has fined online casino operator NorthStar Gaming (Ontario) Inc. CA$100,000 after finding it failed to apply its own anti-money-laundering safeguards to a high-risk player over a roughly 15-month stretch from March 2024 to June 2025. The case surfaced as part of a broader law-enforcement effort, "Project Outsource," targeting criminal activity connected to Ontario's towing industry.
What NorthStar failed to do
According to the AGCO's findings, the player in question deposited approximately $189,395 in total over the period reviewed, including more than $55,000 in a single month, December 2024 — well past the $25,000 lifetime-deposit threshold that NorthStar's own internal policies set for triggering enhanced due diligence. Despite crossing that threshold, the operator did not classify the player as high risk given his disclosed occupation and deposit activity, did not verify his source of funds, and did not take escalating steps such as refusing transactions or excluding him from the platform. NorthStar reportedly did not act until June 2025, after the AGCO began asking questions.
Regulator's response and company reaction
AGCO registrar and CEO Dr. Karin Schnarr said anti-money-laundering controls "must be more than policies on paper," underscoring that having a compliance program on file isn't sufficient if it isn't actually applied to real accounts. NorthStar accepted the AGCO's findings and said it has since hired a new vice president of compliance and completed an independent external compliance review.
Why it matters for players
Enhanced due diligence and source-of-funds checks exist specifically to catch situations where a player's deposit pattern doesn't match their disclosed financial profile — protections that are supposed to work quietly in the background regardless of which regulated operator a player uses. Cases like this show regulators actively auditing whether operators' own compliance policies are being followed in practice, not just written down, which is the same kind of scrutiny AML enforcement actions in US markets like Nevada have applied to Strip casinos over the past year.