Former England international Michael Owen rapped for online casino tweets
Michel Owen has removed tweets promoting Punt Casino.
UK.- The former England player Michael Owen has been found to have used his Twitter account to promote an unlicensed cryptocurrency casino. He published two tweets on May 16 advertising Punt Casino which is registered in Curacao and has no UK licence.
Under UK law, only gambling operations licensed by the British Gambling Commission can be advertised to the British market. Gambling firms targeting other markets sometimes get around this through white-label licences, which are currently legal. However, Punt Casino has no UK licence.
In a press release about Punt Casino, Owen said: “I’m a strong believer in the power of crypto, so teaming up with an innovative platform like Punt Casino feels like a natural fit.”
The release did not mention what markets the casino was targeting.
Owen removed his tweets and Punt Casino was geo-blocked for UK customers after sports media outlet The Athletic queried the case.
Punt Casino insisted that it is fully licensed in Curacao and operating under the rules and regulations of that license. It said it does not target or promote its casino to customers in countries or jurisdictions not allowed by its licence.
Meanwhile, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has intervened instructing Owen to delete a tweet promoting an NFT scheme that claimed to offer “the first-ever (NFTs) that can’t lose their initial value”.
UK MPs criticise Gambling Commission decision to licence Football Index
In a debate in the House of Commons, British MPs have criticised the Gambling Commission over the collapse of Football Index. The football player trading platform run by BetIndex entered administration last year, with customers losing £90m in deposits, the House of Commons heard.
Conservative MP Aaron Bell said the Gambling Commission may have misled the public by licensing the Football Index. He said: “My five constituents – all young men – believed, because they saw the kitemark, that the Gambling Commission understood, and almost endorsed, the product. Obviously it did not.
“If we licence these sorts of products, then we ought to be standing behind them. We are not standing behind them now, as they are struggling to get any sort of compensation at all, although there is obviously an administration process going on.”
