Data from the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has confirmed bookmakers’ suspicion that fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT) are being used by criminals to launder drug money.

The UKGC has revealed that bookies filed 633 suspected money laundering operations to the National Crime Agency between April 2014 and March 2015. The data was released in response to a Freedom of Information request for the number of such Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).

In September, West Yorkshire Police arrested a drug dealer after raiding his home and finding £18,000 in cash, £30,000 of designer clothes and betting shop tickets with a value of £36,000.

In 2013, UKGC ordered Gala Coral to pay back £90,000 they had won from a single money launderer who had “gambled” around £900,000 in the bookmakers’ north east shops. The commission also acknowledged that FOBTs present a “high inherent money-laundering risk”.