The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has cancelled the licence issued to Winzon Group Limited, reference number MGA/B2C/717/2019.
The MGA explained that this was being done in accordance with regulation 10 (2) (b) of the Gaming Compliance and Enforcement Regulations (S.L. 583.06).
When looking at the legislation, this refers to: “Where a ground for cancellation of the authorisation in terms of sub-regulation (1) is deemed to exist following a formal investigation and the authorised person has already been granted a period of time to contest the findings of such investigation in terms of regulation 7(6), the time period mentioned in paragraph (a) shall not be applicable:
“Provided that, not withstanding the above and any other provision in any regulatory instrument or any other law, the Authority shall have the right to cancel an authorisation with immediate effect, by written notice to the authorised person and without giving the authorised person time to show cause why the authorisation should not be cancelled, on grounds of national interest or to safeguard the reputation of Malta, or if the authorisation was obtained by one and/or more materially false or misleading representations or in some other improper way.”
As part of this process, Winzon is now responsible for alerting all players of this licence cancellation, refunding players and providing proof of this to the MGA, deleting personal player data and settling €46,693.23 ($54,578.55) in outstanding licencing fees to the Authority.
In addition, the MGA is issuing €147,080 in administrative penalties “due to the Company’s numerous shortcomings in contravention of the Act and regulatory instruments issued thereunder.”
This is the first significant regulatory action taken by the Authority since it acknowledged the system breach and allegations back in March.
Several of Winzon Group’s casino websites were blacklisted by the Belgian Gambling Commission in 2022
