What AMLA actually reaches: the gap between a single rulebook and a single supervisor

The EU's Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism began operating from Frankfurt in January 2026. Since then a persistent claim has circulated in industry commentary: that AMLA has acquired direct supervisory power over cross-border online gambling operators, with real-time transaction access and penalties reaching 10% of annual turnover, and that iGaming operators will be in its first selection round.

That is not what the Authority's own material says, and the distinction is worth getting right, because the accurate picture is more consequential for operators than the inaccurate one.

Entities AMLA will directly supervise, from 2028

40Entities AMLA will directly supervise, from 2028

Date the AML Regulation becomes directly applicable

10 July 2027Date the AML Regulation becomes directly applicable

Gambling CDD threshold under the single rulebook

€2,000Gambling CDD threshold under the single rulebook

What AMLA said

AMLA has stated that from 2028 it will directly supervise 40 of the most complex, high-risk financial institutions or groups in the European Union. During 2026 it is testing the selection methodology with national supervisors: the data points and criteria used to identify which entities qualify. The Authority's published material does not describe gambling operators as being within that direct-supervision cohort.

A harmonised rulebook and a centralised supervisor are two different reforms. Europe is doing both, on different timetables, over different populations.

Gambling is very much in the rulebook

None of this means the sector is untouched. Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, the AML Regulation, published in the Official Journal in June 2024 and directly applicable from 10 July 2027, introduces the first EU-level definition of gambling services and brings operators under a single, directly applicable set of due diligence obligations.

• Gambling operators are obliged entities: they must identify and verify customers, establish the purpose of the business relationship, and assess money laundering and terrorist financing risk on an ongoing basis.
• Customer due diligence attaches when a customer wagers a stake or collects winnings of €2,000 or more, in a single transaction or in linked transactions.
• Member states may exempt low-risk gambling services, state lotteries are the usual example, from some or all requirements, subject to their own risk assessment.
• Because it is a regulation rather than a directive, it applies identically in every member state with no national transposition step.

The supervisory architecture travels separately. The Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, Directive (EU) 2024/1640, handles national supervisory structures, financial intelligence unit powers and beneficial ownership registers, and must be transposed by member states by the same date.

Why the distinction changes what you prepare for

If AMLA were your supervisor, you would prepare for one relationship, one examination methodology and one set of expectations. Because it is not, a cross-border operator's supervisory reality is the opposite: identical obligations in every market, assessed by a different national authority in each one, each with its own examination style, evidentiary preferences and appetite for enforcement.

That is a harder operating environment than centralised supervision, not an easier one. Harmonised rules remove the excuse of divergent requirements without removing the cost of divergent supervisors. AMLA's indirect role, building the common methodology national authorities apply, is what will eventually narrow that gap, and it is a slower instrument than direct supervision.

The wider lesson is about sourcing. Compliance planning built on secondary commentary rather than the authority's own publications produces confident, specific, wrong timelines, and in this case would have had operators preparing for a supervisor that will not be supervising them, on a date that is roughly a year earlier than the rules actually apply.