The he-said, she-said dispute between online gambling operator 666Bet and the UK Gambling Commission shows no signs of letting up.
If you’re just tuning in, the UK and Alderney gaming licenses of MetroPlay Ltd. – whose operations include 666Bet and MetroPlay.com – were suspended last month over questions of whether MetroPlay was “unsuitable to carry on” its licensed activities. One week later, 666Bet director Paul Bell was identified as one of several individuals arrested in a £21m money laundering and fraud investigation.
Both MetroPlay sites have been offline since last month and irate customers have launched an online petition demanding the refunding of players’ account balances. In response, 666Bet issued a statement saying it can’t make customers whole because the sites’ third-party payment providers had “immediately canceled or suspended” their relationships with the sites following the license suspensions. 666Bet claimed to be working on establishing new third-party relationships, but said UKGC approval would be required before the money could start flowing again.
The UKGC disputed this claim, saying it had yet to receive any communication from a third party looking to process payments on behalf of 666Bet. The UKGC added that its approval wasn’t necessary for 666Bet to enter into such a relationship in order for the site to make its players whole.
On Thursday, 666Bet released another statement via its Facebook page, saying it had been “reliably and explicitly informed on several occasions by our potential third party platform provider that they were waiting for approval from the UKGC … The UKGC have now informed us that this is not the case.”
The statement went on to say that 666Bet had asked the unidentified third party “to clarify their comments.” 666Bet had also sought “further confirmation from the UKGC regarding this situation.”
While it’s waiting, 666Bet says it will “explore alternative routes to pay customers, which we will hope to now announce on Monday.” However, 666Bet cautioned that the site was “still dependent on third party payment providers in order to fulfill withdrawals securely for all our customers.”
A statement on the 666Bet homepage thanked customers for their “continued patience” and said the company would like to “sincerely apologize for the delay which has been due to matters outside of our control.”
