Online gambling operator Global Gaming is giving up on seeing its Swedish license reinstated – at least, for the time being – after a court rejected its latest appeal.
On Monday, the Court of Appeal in Jönköping affirmed last year’s revocation of the online gaming and betting license issued to Global Gaming subsidiary SafeEnt Ltd, which operated in Sweden primarily under its Ninja Casino brand until the Spelinspektionen regulatory body pulled the plug.
The regulator accused SafeEnt of “serious deficiencies in the company’s operations, including applicable gaming responsibility and measures against money laundering.” Specifically, SafeEnt was said to have allowed customers to exceed online deposit limits and failed to intervene when customers demonstrated problem gambling behavior.
The Stockholm-listed Global Gaming appealed the revocation but was forced to suspend its Swedish-facing operations while the appeals process unfolded. The suspension did major damage to the company’s bottom line, forcing it to trim its headcount, while efforts to transfer the Ninja brand to another Swedish-facing operator were rejected.
While the Jönköping court’s ruling said Global Gaming could appeal to Sweden’s Supreme Administrative Court, Global Gaming said Monday it would let the matter drop. Global Gaming recently underwent an ownership shakeup and new bosses Enlabs AB have no interest in further provoking Spelinspektionen’s ire.
Global Gaming’s current board of directors said that this appeals process was something it “inherited” from the previous board and that there was “no reasonable opportunity” for it to halt the appeal before it reached the court.
The new board added that the company had done “extensive work” to ensure it “has a very high level of quality in all areas” of compliance. As such, the board said Monday’s ruling “has no impact on Global Gaming’s current or planned operations.”
Prior to its Global Gaming acquisition, Enlabs was in danger of seeing its own Swedish license revoked, not for any compliance failure but for failing to launch any Swedish-facing operation at all.
