Interactive

Lithuania – NMi completes TonyBet certification

By Phil - 14 March 2016

NMi has assisted TonyBet, one of the fastest growing betting and online gaming companies in the world, to achieve the first remote gaming device certificate in the Republic of Lithuania.

Following the change in law, NMi was one of the first test labs to be granted accreditation approval by The Gaming Control Authority under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania. TonyBet selected NMi to test their online poker system and games as a result of their excellent reputation in Eastern Europe.

TonyBet Poker’s representative Warren Lush commented: “The new gambling law created a lot of fuss in the Lithuanian poker community. The new regulations require every online gaming provider to apply for a licence, otherwise they’re considered illegal. Since the majority of the local players are following the global trends playing on the biggest poker sites, they’re very concerned with the legal situation and how it’s going to affect them. The local gambling authorities are already blocking illegal websites making it harder for the players to access them.

“Being aware of this problem we needed to have our online poker system certified as comprehensively and efficiently as possible, so we turned to NMi. There are a lot of players in Lithuania who live off online poker and we wanted to provide them with the opportunity to play on a legal site. We are the first certified online poker provider in the country and it seems that it’s going to stay that way at least for a while as no other operator has yet started the process.

“We’ve been in the global online poker business for almost three years now and this experience has made it easier for us to start running the site in Lithuania. Two years in a row we’ve hosted the Open Face Chinese Poker World Championship during the Prague poker festival – the world’s biggest live OFC poker event. Just last month we had a huge Hold’em and Omaha series at the legendary Playground Poker club in Montreal, Canada which attracted thousands of both local and international players.

“We run big online poker series at least few times a year as well, however the current €100,000 guaranteed Glory Series is the biggest one yet. We’re really happy to have been able to welcome our Lithuanian players just before its start.”

Julian Borg-Barthet, NMi gaming division Business Development Manager: “When we were approached by TonyBet to test their poker product for Lithuania we had already successfully achieved approval for gaming machine certifications, and were well advanced in our discussions with the regulator in relation to remote gaming, assisting them with our knowledge of best practice. Our familiarity with the regulatory framework put us in a great position to move quickly once the regulations were released. It’s important to us to be able to develop partnerships with our customers to enable them to be the first to market in new jurisdictions, and our partnership with TonyBet Poker demonstrates the capacity, experience and flexibility that we can offer.”

Andrew Rosewarne, NMi gaming division Director, added: “We are grateful to the Gaming Control Authority for their helpful support and swift turnaround of accreditation. As one of the first labs to be granted approval in Lithuania we are delighted to have assisted our customer in demonstrating their compliance with the comprehensive Lithuanian requirements.”