The month in regulation: Dutch fines, UK exits and increased scrutiny

EveryMatrix gives up UK B2C licence as white-label business becomes “unsalvageable”

EveryMatrix has given up its UK operating licence, claiming its white-label business had become “irreparably damaged” by its recent suspension.

The firm’s B2B software provision licence is unaffected by the decision, and the firm will continue to offer gambling software to UK licensed operators.

“We fully respect the UKGC’s decision of suspending our licence and we acknowledge their wish for a substantially changed way of operating white-label businesses in the future,” said Ebbe Groes, CEO of EveryMatrix.

“We regret the impact this suspension has had on our loyal players, on our brands, and on our long-standing white-label partners in the UK, but this business has by now become unsalvageable,” Groes added.

The Stars Group hit with €400,000 Dutch fine

The Stars Group has received a €400,000 fine from the Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) for offering online gambling to Dutch players without a licence.

Officials from the KSA issued the fine under the so-called “prioritisation criteria” following an investigation which found the Pokerstars.eu website could be reached by Dutch players from July 2018 to January 2019.

In addition to being accessible to Dutch players, the Pokerstars.eu website offered players the choice to use the iDEAL payment method and featured a player contact form in Dutch.

Investigators also found that the Netherlands was not included on a list of countries from which participation was not permitted. Links to two Dutch-facing organisations dealing with gambling-related harm were also included on the site.

Brazil could implement 10-year ‘bad actor’ clause

The Brazilian government has said it may implement a so-called ‘bad actor’ clause, forcing operators which have previously operated illegally within other jurisdictions to declare they have done so.

The new rules would require operators to provide a statement confirming they have “never operated illegally in regulated lottery markets and other betting systems with cash prizes, as issued by the Ministry of Economy or its successor”.

Brazilian regulators will be given the power to temporarily (for a maximum of 30 days) or permanently suspend operator licences. Regulators could also bar sanctioned or suspended operators from reapplying for a licence for a 10-year period if required.

The consultation paper, which is the third issued in less than three months, also confirmed any operator deemed to be breaching its licence will receive a warning, together with one-off and daily fines up to a maximum of 100% of gross gaming revenue.

Italian gambling laws are pushing problem gamblers underground, LOGiCO warns

Italy’s stringent gambling laws are driving problem gamblers underground and inadvertently undermining the entire regulatory system, Italian trade body LOGiCO has warned.

In an open letter addressed to Italian president Giuseppe Conte, LOGiCO president Moreno Morasco said the Italian government’s recent gambling regulatory changes were causing economic harm to operators and customers.

Morasco claims the Italian government, in wishing to address problem gambling, is driving problem gamblers underground and producing the “exact opposite” of the set objective in increasing the social costs stemming from problem gambling.

Qualifying this assessment, LOGiCO cites an earlier Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) study, which showed that problem gambling was less common on licensed operator sites than on unlicensed alternatives.

The report also found the use of advertising had “limited weight” in determining consumer choice, with the ISS study finding that only 19% of players had chosen to gamble on sites after viewing an advert, whereas 80% said advertising had not determined their decision to gamble.

Malta egaming “inherently vulnerable” to money laundering, new EU report claims

The Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering (AML) body has called on the Maltese authorities to step up efforts to combat money laundering in Malta, claiming current resources used are inadequate.

In a new report, MONEYVAL assessed the effectiveness of Malta’s current AML and anti-terrorism financing initiatives across a broad range of industries and its level of compliance with the guidelines set out by the EU’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The report highlights the online gambling sector in Malta as being “inherently vulnerable” to money laundering due to the high number of non-resident customers using online operator sites.

This, together with the high volume of transactions being processed, the non-face-to-face nature of online gambling and the use of prepaid cards by players constitutes an increased risk of money laundering, according to MONEYVAL.