Legislation
UK – Gambling Commission suspends two online licences
By Phil - 5 April 2020
The UK Gambling Commission has suspended the licences of two online operators with immediate effect and commenced reviews for failure to fully integrate the self-exclusion scheme GAMSTOP.
All online operators were notified in January that participating in GAMSTOP by 31 March was a requirement of their licence conditions and social responsibility code provision 3.5.5. The decision to suspend the licences of Dynamic, trading as Prophet, and Sportito was taken for failure to comply. Subsequent to the suspension being implemented, Sportito has now integrated and its suspension has been lifted, the review continues.
Neil McArthur, Gambling Commission Chief Executive, said: “We have made it clear to operators that we are ready and willing to use our powers to protect consumers, as this action demonstrates. Self-exclusion is an important tool to protect vulnerable consumers, which is why we made it compulsory for all online operators to be signed up to GAMSTOP by 31 March. We took action because the operators had not complied by the deadline, which placed vulnerable consumers at risk.
“One of the suspensions has now been lifted as the operator is now compliant. Our investigations into both operators continue.”
Operating Licence No 053101-R-330206-001 and 000-053739-R-330568-003 were suspended in accordance with s118(2) of the Gambling Act 2005. Reviews have been commenced under s116 as the Commission believes a condition of both licences had been breached and the Licensees may be unsuitable to carry out the licensed activities.
The suspension of Dynamic’s licence will remain in place until the Commission is satisfied that the operator has fully integrated the GAMSTOP scheme and is fully compliant with their licence conditions.
