Larry The Leprechaun Xmas Edition

About Larry The Leprechaun Xmas Edition

On Monday, the Gambling Regulators European Forum (GREF) announced a reshuffle of its board following the departure of two long-standing members and the appointment of two new officers.

GREF is a cooperative network bringing together national gambling regulators across Europe and beyond to facilitate dialogue, exchange information and share best practice on regulatory strategies. 

Tim Miller, who resigned from the UK Gambling Commission earlier this year, has stepped down from the GREF board and has relinquished his role as treasurer. 

About Larry The Leprechaun Xmas Edition

The report also cites brands targeting a specifically banned vertical or product within a jurisdiction as driving black market activity. While markets across Europe have many examples, one such flagged in the report is that iGaming remains illegal for licensed operators in France.

“The largest black market operators have scaled to create recognisable brands with traffic that can compare to domestically licensed operators,” the report’s authors wrote. “The top group of sites by common owner has a 12% share of traffic, while the largest single brand has 10%.”

Beyond offering crypto payment solutions, a number of black market operators are licensed in “light touch” offshore jurisidictions which use opaque offshore operating structures to help to obscure company ownership and make local enforcement against these companies complex, the report noted.

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During a session of the House Audit Committee last Thursday, members of parliament (MPs), the Data Protection Commissioner and representatives from the Welfare Benefits Administration Service (WBAS), the Gaming & Casino Supervision Commission and the National Betting Authority (NBA) convened to discuss ways to identify and restrict gambling activity among GMI beneficiaries, as reported by Cyprus Mail.

While the intention is to protect vulnerable households and ensure welfare is spent on essential needs, proposed measures are being complicated by legal, technical and privacy obstacles.

Harris Tsangarides, executive director of the Gaming & Casino Supervision Commission, said his department had noticed spikes in gambling activity coinciding with GMI payment dates, prompting the regulator to consider “technical solution” to cross-reference GMI beneficiary lists with casino membership records.