Malta Gaming Authority imposes mandatory suspicious betting reporting requirement
Malta-licensed bookies required by law to submit reports on irregular bets from January 2021
It will be mandatory for all Malta-licensed operators to report any suspicious betting patterns from January 2021, the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has confirmed.
To facilitate enforcement of this directive, the MGA will make its Suspicious Betting Reporting Mechanism (SBRM) tool available to all B2C operators from 1 November 2020.
The SBRM allows operators to input the details of any suspicious event in which anomalous betting patterns have been reported and to provide documentation or attachments to support this claim.
Even though the obligation to report suspicious betting will be brought into force in January 2021, operators who are already reporting suspicious betting activity to the MGA will be required to submit reports via the SBRM from November.
“The MGA is eager in safeguarding integrity in sports and sport betting events, which cannot be done without the assistance of the stakeholders, especially when the obligation of reporting suspicious betting will be in place,” the MGA said.
“The MGA is expecting that all its licensees will collaborate on such matters.
“However, if there is a clear lack of collaboration, the MGA will have to take the necessary enforcement matters for not collaborating in such obligations,” the regulator added.
All Malta-licensed B2C operators will be provided with a copy of a guide explaining the SBRM in the run up to the deadline.
The move follows a seven-week MGA consultation on the SBRM which sought industry feedback on the new reporting mechanism.
MGA regulators received 10 responses to the consultation, which it claimed were overwhelmingly “highly positive”.
The MGA has also committed to holding regular workshops, a bi-annual roundtable event and a Sports Integrity forum to bring together sport governing bodies, enforcement bodies and global monitoring bodies.