SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has continued its crackdown on operators in breach of the country’s gaming laws after it confirmed it has cancelled Sports Fantech’s B2C gaming licence with immediate effect.
Under the new ruling, Sports Fantech will no longer be permitted to carry out any gaming operations, register new players or accept new customer deposits.
However, the regulator has specified that the operator ‘is required to retain and provide all registered players with access to their player accounts and to refund all funds standing to the credit of players in line with the applicable law’.
Sports Fantech was previously authorised to offer type 4 gaming services such as controlled skill games on a B2C basis via its licence.
The MGA ruled that Sports Fantech breached paragraph H of the Third Schedule to the Gaming Act, whereby it failed to make payments to the MGA when lawfully due.
Sports Fantech will be permitted to appeal the ruling under article 43 of the Gaming Act.
Earlier this year, the MGA announced a trio of licensee suspensions, confirming that it had suspended the licences of German/Turkish online bookmaker Betixx Limited, alongside Silema-based industry games developer Morpheus Games (MT).
The MGA also fully terminated the operator licence of World-of-bets EU Limited, which had held a licence in Malta since 2008. Under the termination, the regulator redirected visitors from the World-of-bets flagship portal wobets.com towards an MGA holding page.
