Source of Funds (SoF)
Evidence of where a customer's money comes from; requested at risk thresholds under AML rules.
The evidence trail behind a customer's money: payslips, bank statements, sale documents — requested when deposits or losses cross risk thresholds. It operationalises AML: identity says who the customer is; source of funds says whether their spending makes sense.
It is also where compliance meets customer friction hardest, since the request lands mid-relationship rather than at signup. Licensed operators must hold the line regardless — published UK enforcement actions repeatedly cite six-figure losses accepted without a single source-of-funds document.
Source-of-funds is the moment compliance stops being a checkbox and becomes an investigation: payslips, bank statements, sale contracts — evidence that the money being gambled has a legitimate origin. British operators conduct these checks under AML obligations and the affordability expectations layered on by the 2023 White Paper programme; the threshold question — how much play before evidence is demanded — is one of the most contested lines in the regime.
The check sits at the intersection of two regulatory goals that pull the same direction: anti-money-laundering wants provenance, player protection wants affordability. The same bank statement answers both. The friction cost is real — document requests interrupt play and drive some customers offshore — which is why the calibration is argued about in consultations rather than settled.
The term earns its glossary entry because it is where players most often collide with regulation in person: an account restricted pending documents is usually a source-of-funds hold. In this atlas it appears in the United Kingdom profile and the responsible-gambling comparison, because Britain has pushed the practice furthest — and because the rest of the regulated column tends to follow British compliance practice after a lag.