Malta’s gambling regulator has dropped the ban hammer on one of its online gambling licensees as well as a site apparently pretending to be a licensee.
On Monday, the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) announced that it had “no connection with www.betmod90.com.” The MGA offered no details on its announcement, saying only that any references on the Turkish-facing Betmod90 site to being licensed by the MGA were “false and misleading.”
On Thursday, the MGA announced that it had suspended the remote gaming license of GLX Services Ltd. Here again, the MGA offered no further information on the rationale behind its decision, except to say that its silence was justified so as “not to compromise any investigations that may need to be performed” by the MGA “and/or any other competent authority.”
The MGA did say that sites operating under the MGA/CL2/432/2007 license were to “immediately suspend all gaming operations,” stop registering new customers, suspend all website transactions and to submit all data and documentation requested by the MGA.
The MGA/CL2/432/2007 license had previously been listed under the name Yosware Limited, a Malta-based company whose associated domains included Gobet33.com, Yosplay.com and Gamejoins.com. A search indicates that Gamelux-branded sites also cite this MGA license number.
Most of these sites appear to be focused on the Italian market, opening up the possibility that the suspension could have something to do with that country’s recent bust of illegal online gambling operations, although none of the above sites have so far been cited by Italian authorities in relation to last week’s police action.
A similar Italian bust last summer led the MGA to suspend the licenses of several Italian-facing operators, which prompted the affected licensees to threaten legal action if the investigation turned up no evidence of chicanery. One year later, the suspended licenses have yet to be reinstated.
