Lithuania’s Gambling Supervisory Authority has fined Baltic Bet €16,705 (£14,319/$18,259) for breaching rules over promoting gambling to consumers.
An investigation by the Authority found Baltic Bet published information on its website that it said encouraged people to gamble. This information appeared between 3 November 2022 and 28 February this year.
The Authority ruled that this was a breach of Article 10, Paragraph 19 of the country’s Law on Gambling, which prohibits operators from encouraging gambling.
The regulator also flagged an issue regarding Baltic Bet’s use of key words on search engine Google to promote its Optibet brand.
According to the Authority, when the key words “Optibet casino” and “Optibet live betting” were combined, this drew attention to the operator’s website. As such, this was deemed another breach of Article 10, Paragraph 19 of the Law on Gambling.
In response, the regulator used Baltic Bet with a fine and also warned the operator that it could face further action if repeat offences occurred. The Authority gave Baltic Bet until 7 July to address these measures.
Baltic Bet has the option to appeal against the ruling.
Triple fine for Top Sport
The latest fine comes after the Authority earlier this month issued three financial penalties in the space of a week to Top Sport.
The first of these was an initial €25,000 fine related to allowing underage individuals to enter one of its slot salons. An investigation found three people, at least one of whom was a minor, were able to enter the facility and remained inside for more than two hours. The Authority said Top Sport did not take any measures to remove the three people from its premises.
Top Sport was then fined a further €15,000 after it breached regulations on mobile betting. The Authority found that bets were being automatically placed on Top Sport’s betting app. After a user placed bets on a live roulette table supplied by Ezugi, once they had locked their phone, the app automatically repeated the bet.
Finally, the operator was fined €15,000 for a breach related to payments and depositing into an online account. An individual had been topping up the balance of two other players’ accounts with Top Sport using his own payment cards. The regulator said that as Top Sport did not ensure only the account holder was depositing into their own account, this was in breach of gambling law.