Top Sport Penalized for the Third Time This Year by the Lithuanian Gambling Authority
After violating one regulation of the Law on Gambling of the Lithuanian Gambling Act, gambling operator Top Sport has been slapped with a fine of €15,000. The operator allowed one of its players to deposit funds into their gambling account on the website from a third-party account. Such deposits from third-party accounts are prohibited under the gambling law of Lithuania. Top Sport was hit with a third find of the new year upon detection. The Lithuania-based operator was fined twice in February for flouting two other regulations in the country.
Top Sport once again penalized with a heavy fine after violating a regulation of the Law on Gambling of the Lithuanian Gambling Act.
©Victor Malyushev/Unsplash
Top Sport is Lithuania’s first and largest gambling operator. However, the operator has been responsible for numerous breaches during its operation in the regulated gambling market of Lithuania. Top Sport does own a license, but due to its lackadaisical approach in the market, the operator has been slapped with a third fine of the year. This is not the first time Top Sport has had to face the law. Last year, the Lithuanian Gambling Supervisory Authority issued three fines on three separate occasions to the operator for three different violations. The first fine came in May 2022 when Top Sport was seen posting gambling promotion posts on its website. Lithuania is one of the few countries in the world that has imposed a complete ban on gambling advertisements. Since the law was passed, gambling operators were given no wiggle room for advertising and marketing activities. Top Sport tried and, as a result, ended up receiving a €25,000 fine for violating Article 10, paragraph 19 of the gambling law.
Four months after the first fine, Top Sport was under the Lithuanian gambling regulator’s microscope again. This time, the operator was contacted by the regulator because the CCTV Cameras at two of Top Sport’s land-based gambling locations were out of focus. The blurry visuals from these cameras made it difficult to identify the individuals visiting these gambling locations. Hence, the Lithuanian Gambling Supervisory Authority imposed a €15,000 fine for improper camera installation. In October 2022, barely a month after paying its second fine of the year, Top Sport allowed a player from beyond the jurisdiction of Lithuania to access its platform and gamble remotely. According to Article 205, Part 3, Article 201, Part 1 of the Lithuanian Gambling Law, the licensed gambling operators in Lithuania are only supposed to offer their services within the jurisdiction of the Baltic nation and not beyond it. Top Sport violated this directive and ended up with another fine of €15,000.
The year has changed, but the scenario has not. Top Sport has already been slapped with three fines in the first three months of the new year. The first came on the first day of February this year when another improper CCTV Camera installation landed the renowned Lithuanian operator in trouble. Being the country’s oldest and largest gambling operator, Top Sport’s nationwide network is huge. The operator has betting shops in 26 towns and 62 betting locations all over the country. It also has about 50 casino slot machine salons across the nation. Under the gambling law, each of these land-based outlets is supposed to have a proper CCTV Camera setup that recognizes the faces of individuals that walk into gamble. However, at one of the locations at Zirmunu st. 2 in Vilnius, the security tapes were blurry, and some footage was not saved. Hence, Top Sport violated Article 15, Paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Gambling Act by providing unclear footage to the regulator. By not saving a few clips, the operator also violated Paragraph 5 of Article 15 of the law. The penalty is yet to be finalized.
As a result, the operator was penalized again and was asked to pay a fine of €15,000. Less than a week after the imposition of that fine, the Lithuanian Gambling Supervisory Authority issued another fine of €25,000 on Top Sport for promoting its website and mobile app via numerous emails that were sent in August last year. The emails comprised the operator’s official domain (www.topsport.lt) and a URL that redirected recipients to the Play Store and Apple Store to download the Top Sport app. The fine was announced as the emails fell under the category of advertising and marketing gambling, but the decision was not finalized by the regulator. The examination of the probable violation is in progress, and Top Sport can appeal the decision. The operator’s third and latest fine came earlier this week after the entity violated Article 5, Paragraph 1 of the Gambling Act when it allowed a digital deposit in a player account via a third-party bank account. A fine of €15,000 was announced, but like the previous case, the decision to penalize Top Sport is not final yet.
Amber Gaming has been fined four times in the last 13 months
While Top Sport has been slapped with six fines since the start of 2022, there is another gambling operator that has experienced something similar. Another Lithuania-based operator, Amber Gaming, has been penalized four times by the Lithuanian Gambling Supervisory Authority for different violations each time. In January last year, the Lithuanian regulator issued two fines worth €18,755 and €12,705 on Amber Gaming’s domain 7bet. The first was for advertising gambling, while the other was imposed because the operator enabled players outside Lithuania’s jurisdiction to access its platform and gamble.
In May 2022, the Lithuanian Gambling Supervisory Authority issued a fine worth €6,789 to Amber Gaming after the regulator detected gambling advertising activity on 7bet’s website again. Since this was a repeated offense, the regulator also sent out a warning to the regulator regarding the suspension of its gambling license if the offenses did not stop. In November 2022, an investigation of Amber Gaming revealed that the operator was offering “prohibited bets” on 7bet. For this code violation, the operator was penalized €6,000, and yet again, a warning regarding license revocation was sent out.
Between June and August 2022, Amber Gaming sent two emails to two different players for password creation/reminder. The email comprised active links that redirected recipients to 7bet’s website. This was construed as an advertising and marketing activity for gambling and based on that, the regulator announced a €6,000 fine for Amber Gaming. The final decision on the imposition of the latest penalty is still pending. During this time, Amber Gaming can appeal the decision.
Zalgirio Loto license revoked on request
Between the dishing out of fines for operators like Top Sport and Amber Gaming, the gambling license of one of Lithuania’s longest-running large lottery operators, Zalgirio Loto, was revoked last month. The lottery operator commenced its operations in the Baltic nation after securing a lottery license in 2004.
Almost 20 years after offering large lotteries to numerous Lithuanian players, the operator did not see its license revoked because of any violations. According to the Lithuanian Gambling Surveying Authority, the operator itself requested the nation’s regulator to cancel its gambling permit, thereby ending its lengthy spell in the regulated markets of Lithuania.
