Malta & Italy On A Collision Course
Published: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
MALTA AND ITALY ON A COLLISION COURSE
In a new and aggressive move, Italy slaps an e-ban on Malta gaming authority
website
The Italian authorities made the headlines in Maltese media this week with a new
aggressive move aimed at blocking Italian players from Internet gaming activities.
For some months now (see previous Online-Casinos.com & InfoPowa reports) a
war of words has been going on after the Italians arbitrarily enacted a blockade
of 684 internet gaming sites back in February. 68 of the sites were licensed by
the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Authority. In a bid to bypass the blockade,
the LGA linked its website to all the Maltese gaming sites using a web anonymiser
that disguises the websites’ IP addresses.
Now the Italians have upped the ante by blacking out the Lotteries and Gaming
Authority’s official website – the last remaining link to Italian gaming
sites registered in Malta. The LGA website is now no longer accessible from Italian
territory, after Italy’s state administration for monopolies, the AAMS,
warned the site had no authorisation to collect bets and blocked it from Italian
ISPs..
LGA chief executive Mario Galea, who at the time was in Italy addressing
the European Forum of Gaming Regulators, made a strong statement criticising
the Italian action to delegates: “We cannot accept that the good, the bad
and the ugly are thrown in the same basket. Malta’s websites are regulated
by the official Maltese authority,” Galea said.
The blockade action started when the Italian government blocked all foreign gaming
sites from the UK to Malta, claiming it was protecting Italian gamers from “phishing”
– the fraudulent acquisition of passwords and credit card details.
Threats of legal action under European Union law were made by major international
gambling groups, and critics of the Italian move said that the real motive was
to protect the Italian government's EUR 1.8 billion gambling monopoly. In the
confusing legal melee that followed, a Malta licensee, Astrabet was initially
successful (see previous InfoPowa reports) in obtaining a ruling that the blockade
be lifted in its case, but this has apparently since been revoked by an Italian
appeals court after a further challenge by the AAMS.
However, while the appeal by AAMs was accepted, the request for a suspension of
the ruling was not, which means that technically access to Astrabet should be
open to Italians - it is not.
Italian ISPs have little choice in the matter when the AAMS adds new sites to
its blockade list - any Italian ISP that does not comply risks a daily fine of
EUR 180 000.
Malta is awaiting a response from the European Commission on it's investigations
into whether infringement procedures should be commenced against Italy. The European
Commission has apparently requested information from the Italians on the restrictions
imposed on online betting and gaming and the justification for these.
