Strengthening AML/CTF and safer gambling: our partnership with Vanguard Overwatch
Since April 2025, McAtamney & Advisors has partnered with Vanguard Overwatch - the governance and regulatory advisory firm founded and led by Paul Newson, formerly NSW Deputy Secretary for gambling, liquor and racing regulation - to deliver AML/CTF and safer gambling advisory work for registered clubs and multi-venue operators. This page pulls together what the partnership is and the work we’ve delivered through it so far.
The partnership
Vanguard Overwatch’s own description of its mission is direct: “Hostile to money laundering. Towards zero gambling harm.” It runs an Accreditation Program - built around governance, AML/CTF processes, safer gambling practice and organisational culture - that gives gaming operators independent assurance and a practical uplift path, rather than a paper compliance exercise.
The partnership, announced in April 2025, brought McAtamney & Advisors’ strategy and regulatory advisory capability together with Vanguard Overwatch’s specialist gambling regulatory expertise, and saw James McAtamney appointed a principal at Vanguard Overwatch. As Paul Newson put it at the time:
This partnership significantly enhances our ability to support clients navigating regulatory complexity and scrutiny. Together, we’re delivering sharp, independent analysis and tailored strategic advice that helps operators meet their obligations, protect their reputation, and drive better social and economic outcomes.
James McAtamney, on the same announcement:
We’re proud to align with Vanguard Overwatch to support operators in building high-performing compliance systems and engaging confidently with regulators. Our combined capabilities create a powerful platform to support clients across strategy, licensing, AML/CTF, and safer gambling.
The work together
Uplifting a program before it’s tested
Rather than waiting for a gap to surface under regulator scrutiny, we worked through a NSW registered club’s full AML/CTF policy suite - customer screening, transaction monitoring, patron oversight, reporting - against both its obligations and what the club was actually doing day to day, then prepared its risk assessment and board-committee reporting so oversight became ongoing rather than a point-in-time check.
Read the full credential: Uplifting the AML/CTF program at a NSW registered club.
Independent review inside a board-wide transformation
When a large NSW registered club undertook a whole-of-org transformation, its AML/CTF program needed assurance that came from genuinely outside the program being assessed - not a management self-assessment folded into the transformation narrative. We reviewed the program against its obligations and framed the findings inside the transformation the board was already running, so the board received one coherent picture rather than a disconnected compliance report.
Read the full credential: An independent AML/CTF review inside a board-wide transformation.
Independent review across a multi-venue group
Multi-venue operators carry a particular AML/CTF risk: each venue can end up interpreting the same obligations slightly differently. We ran on-site reviews across three venues of a NSW club group using one structured methodology, so results were genuinely comparable site to site, and delivered a prioritised recommendations register ranked by ease of implementation and long-term relevance.
Read the full credential: An independent AML/CTF review across a multi-venue club group.
Why it matters
Registered clubs and multi-venue operators carry the same AML/CTF and safer gambling obligations as the sector’s largest, most heavily resourced players, without always carrying the same dedicated compliance resourcing - which is exactly where a partnership built to combine strategic advisory depth with specialist gambling regulatory expertise earns its keep. Three engagements in, the pattern is consistent: independent assurance that boards and operators can actually rely on, delivered by people who understand both the regulatory substance and the commercial reality operators are managing it inside.
