Ontario’s gaming regulator has fined NorthStar Gaming (Ontario) Inc. C$100,000 after finding failings in anti-money-laundering controls tied to a single player account that ran from March 2024 to June 2025. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario said the review was triggered after the player was charged by police in connection with Project Outsource, a joint law-enforcement effort targeting criminal activity in the towing industry.
The AGCO said NorthStar’s own AML policies treated the player’s disclosed occupation as high risk and required enhanced due diligence, including source-of-funds checks, once lifetime deposits reached C$25,000. The account hit that threshold in March 2024, but the operator did not classify the player as high risk, did not carry out the required EDD assessment and did not verify the source of funds.
Deposits then continued for more than a year. In December 2024 alone, the player deposited more than C$55,000. By June 2025, total deposits had reached about C$189,000. The AGCO said NorthStar did not move to terminate the account until June 2025, after the regulator made inquiries, more than a year after the company’s AML obligations had first been triggered.
The penalty was imposed under the Gaming Control Act, 1992 and the Registrar’s Standards for Internet Gaming, including Standard 6.03, which requires operators to identify, reduce and manage suspected money-laundering risk and to use risk-based controls such as source-of-funds verification and escalation where warranted. AGCO registrar and chief executive Dr. Karin Schnarr said operators are “the first line of defence against criminal activity in Ontario’s gaming market” and that anti-money-laundering controls must be more than policies on paper.
The case adds to a recent run of Ontario enforcement actions over gaming compliance, including earlier fines against Great Canadian Entertainment and Betty Gaming. NorthStar said in a Newsfile release carried by Yahoo Finance that it had agreed to settle the matter for C$80,000, a figure that differs from the AGCO’s order.
NorthStar said it did not dispute the finding and had cooperated fully with the regulator. It also said it had since invested substantially in its compliance programme, appointing a new vice-president of compliance, adding staff, expanding its compliance committee and completing an external review of compliance effectiveness.
Chief executive Corey Goodman said the company accepted responsibility for the matters identified in the order and said the conduct was confined to a specific period that is now behind it. NorthStar Gaming (Ontario) Inc. can request a hearing before the Licence Appeal Tribunal within 15 days of being served with the order.
