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New CEO at Malta\’s LGA

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Reuben Portanier has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Lotteries and Gaming Authority in Malta.

In a statement that once again proves how the LGA is completely detached from reality, the authority’s Chairman said to be confident that Mr Portanier’s skills and experience in the ICT industry will steer the LGA ahead and will position the Maltese jurisdiction as an international centre of excellence. Well this centre of excellence needed 18 months to suspend (not even cancel) the license of scam bookmaker Betchance, while several other Malta bookmakers (I personally lost count) continue to have problems, confirming that both the LGA licensing process and regulating procedures are flawed as way too many bookmakers over the years have turned into no-pay nightmares for the players.
With almost 40 million euros in revenues in 2008 you would expect the LGA to take responsability for failed bookmakers or at least to consider an old plan of mine, which I presented to the authority back in 2006, and that required all Maltese bookmakers to contribute to an emergency fund to protect the good name of the industry (not that there is much left now) taking over player balances when a licensed bookmaker could not make front to payments anymore.
Back then the representatives of two major bookmakers said it was unlikely that such plan could ever come to light and now I understand why: not even the local bookmakers trust the capacity (should I say the willingness?) of the LGA to regulate the activity and make sure player funds that are supposed to be in ring-fenced accounts are really there.

In related news, one player reported yesterday to have received a Neteller payment from Wauwbet for the first 50% of his balance, which the bookmaker originally refused to pay as the deposit was made through debit card and Wauwbet wanted to make sure the player could not charge back, which I normally understand but under the circumstances Wauwbet closed its operation I find kind of ridicolous as it is exactly the same as if scammers were worried about some of their victims trying to get their money back. Then again the Malta’s LGA agreed to the bookmaker’ s plan just as they agreed to Betchance’s plan. Too bad the LGA didn’t make sure the bookmakers made the payments as they agreed to do.