Greece’s regulator yesterday provided a fleeting glimpse of its first blacklist of 402 online gambling websites deemed to be operating illegally in the country without a local licence.
The blacklist was published on the website of the Hellenic Gaming Commission (Ε.Ε.Ε.Π.), only to be withdrawn without explanation a few hours later. This is due to be formally issued and forwarded onto local ISPs today, who will be required to block Greek residents from accessing the sites, according to Capital.gr.
The newspaper also reported that representatives of the 24 companies which were issued licences in 2011 under a temporary licensing scheme were invited to a hearing, ostensibly to submit extra documents in order to obtain an extension to continue operating legally in Greece.
Other local reports claim the ISPs have already received the blacklist and that the Bank of Greece has informed all credit institutions to cease trading with blacklisted companies, according to infobeto.com.
Before being withdrawn, the full list was widely reproduced by a host of local news sources and can be viewed here at BetBlog.gr.
The blacklist includes domains belonging to many of Europe’s leading online operators, including 888, Betsson, Bet Victor, Betclic, Stan James, Unibet, Sportingbet, bwin.party and 32Red. US casino giant Caesars’ UK-facing bingo and casino websites also appeared, along with ex French horse racing monopoly PMU’s dot.fr site
The hit-list does not include any domains associated with Betfair, William Hill and Ladbrokes, the three London-listed operators which formally withdrew operations from the market last November under threat of sanctions.
Notable omissions from the first blacklist include Bet365 and PokerStars, both of which target players with Greek-language options, although PokerStars’ main blog site does appear.
Greece laid the foundations for the blacklist last November, when it introduced a raft of new sanctions aimed at preventing operators from targeting its igaming market without the requisite licence. The EC standstill for review of the changes expired in April, effectively clearing the way for the regulator to implement the sanctions.
The Greek ISPs face fines of €50,000 per day per operator if they fail to comply with the blocking orders, with unlicensed operators risking fines per day of €20,000 for each game type and €10,000 for advertising, with direct marketing communications costing €200,000 per infringement.
The EU Member State has also introduced amendments to its Gambling Law in order to restrict online betting and most other online games to local monopoly OPAP until 2020, also waved through by EU regulators last week.
The first companies to announce their exits from Greece in the wake of the new sanctions being announced, Betfair and William Hill, applied last month to run the Greek online gambling monopoly set to be handed to OPAP, in a move designed to expose the lack of a competitive and transparent tender process, as required under EU law.
Article written by Stephen Carter
