Italy bans Malta gaming authority's website.

Maltese media headlines blared the recent moves by Italian authorities to block Italian players from Internet gaming.

Until now, the battle has simply remained a war of words since the Italian authorities arbitrarily blocked almost seven hundred internet gaming sites earlier this year. Almost ten percent of these sites were licensed by Malta Lotteries and Gaming Authority. To overcome this,  the Gaming Authority attached its website to all Maltese gaming sites through a web anonymiser. In this way the IP addresses were disguised.

the Italians have since upped the ante. First of all they blacked the Lotteries and Gaming Authority’s official website. This website was the single remaining link to Italian gaming sites registered in Malta. This means that the LGA website cannot be accessed on Italian territory.

According to Mario Galea, the Lotteries Chief Executive, who, during the latest action, was actually present in Italy addressing the European Forum of Gaming Regulators. In his presentation he strongly criticized the Italian action to audiences.

Initially, the blockade began with the Italian government  blocking all foreign gaming sites originating in the United Kingdom to Malta. The blockade was justified as protecting Italian gamblers from "phishing” – this term refers to the fraudulent acquisition of passwords and credit card details.

Major international gambling groups reacted by threatening legal action according to European Union Law. Critics claimed that the action was indeed meant to protect the Italian governments billion Euro gambling monopoly. Since then, a Malta licensee was initially successful in lifting the blockade for its company. However, this has since been revoked by Italian appeals court.

Nevertheless, even though the appeals has been accepted, the same request for suspending the ruling was not. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, the site should still be accessible to Italian players. However, it still remains unaccessible.

Italian ISPs have been given little room to move. They are threatened with a daily fine of EUR 180 000 for each site they continue to host that is on the blockade list.

The European commission is investigating whether procedures should be taken against Italy. Malta is awaiting the final response of this. The commission is currently waiting on justification by the Italians for the blockade and restrictions they are imposing.

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