A California card room has caught a $3m break from federal watchdogs after promising to do a better job of observing anti-money laundering (AML) rules.

Last November, the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) imposed an $8m penalty on Artichoke Joe’s Casino (AJC) in San Bruno. Fincen described the penalty as stemming from AJC’s having “turned a blind eye to loan sharking, suspicious transfers of high-value gaming chips, and flagrant criminal activity that occurred in plain sight.”

However, last week FinCEN announced it had settled and issued a new assessment against AJC that suspended $3m of that civil money penalty pending compliance with the undertakings stipulated in the assessment, including hiring a qualified independent consultant to review AJC’s AML program and submit written reports on said program’s adequacy.

AJC must also hire a qualified independent consultant to conduct a ‘look-back’ at all transactions in the years 2012-2014 to ensure whether any other dodgy dealings might have escaped FinCEN’s eagle eyes. A report on this look-back must be filed by December 31, 2018.