Lithuania: Top Sport UAB warned over World Cup prediction game
The Gambling Supervisory Authority has told the operator that Topikas.lt was breaching regulations.
Lithuania.- The Gambling Supervisory Authority has warned the gambling operator Top Sport UAB over its sponsorship of a World Cup prediction game. It said that the game, at Topikas.lt, broke the country’s ban on the promotion of gambling.
The regulator noted that the website, which invites players to predict the results of matches in the ongoing FIFA World Cup in Qatar, heavily featured Top Sport branding, included clickable banners that linked to Top Sport’s website and also that the Topikas game had similarities with Top Sport’s betting offering.
As an example of this, it highlighted that players could earn points by predicting results, which reflected a mechanism on Top Sport’s own website for betting on matches. As a result, the Gambling Supervision Authority found that the site breached article 10, paragraph 19 of Lithuania’s Gambling Law, which prohibits operators from “encouraging people to participate in gambling”.
The regulator said: “It should be noted that publishing information about an organised game in any form that may encourage participation in gambling is prohibited. We therefore recommend media representatives and all entities promoting the game to stop advertising the game and remove all information related to it from their means of dissemination until the game organisers have corrected the deficiencies.”
UAB Olympic Casino dealt another fine in Lithuania
The Lithuania Gambling Supervisory Authority has issued another fine against UAB Olympic Casino Group Baltija for a breach of the country’s strict rules on gambling advertising. It’s fined the online gambling operator €25,000 after finding that content on Olympic Casino’s website about how to watch live sports events on Setanta Sports encouraged users to bet.
The Lithuania regulator said that the content breached Article 10, Paragraph 19 of the Law on Gambling of the Republic of Lithuania, which prohibits operators from encouraging people to participate in gambling.
Olympic Casino has been handed a couple of fines of the same amount already this year for breaches of Lithuania’s gambling advertising rules. In May, the fine was for the use of promotional slogans encouraging consumers to play online slots and casino games. In March, it was fined for publishing information about a poker tournament.
