Yes, and not giving away the money in the first place is even more profitable. When you hear about these schemes they are generally paper losses (depreciation being a big one). It's not in your interest to hand AMC millions of dollars for a tax deduction.
But it's not a conspiracy, Movie Pass really did pay theaters full price for tickets while charging customers $10 a month. It lost a huge amount of money. No one disputes any of this, it's just someone who doesn't know anything who said "money laundering". They are wrong, it was an obviously bad business, not a money laundering or tax scheme.
I think it is not a for stretch invoking "money laundering" is a knee jerk reaction to seeing crazy business model that doesn't make sense --> something fishy must be going on. While the neighbor of incompetence maybe malice they are rarely home, and if they are even more rarely seen in the house.
I know that when I first learned of movie pass years ago and it was explained to me. It made literally no sense how they'd turn a dollar despite it being explained to me more times than I can count.
I also remember thinking it sounded like some alternative scheme was going on. However I probably acted more paranoid than the rest and decided to pass on getting cheap movie tickets.
