Bet365 blasts Romanian regulator over licence cancellation

Bet365 has raised concerns over the behaviour of the Romanian gambling regulator and launched legal proceedings against the organisation in a bid to overturn the decision to cancel its licence to operate in the country.

The operator said it was “extremely concerned” by the recent actions of the Romanian National Office for Gambling (ONJN) which has left it without a licence and more than £20m out of pocket having paid back taxes as part of the licensing process.

Bet365 also questioned whether the ONJN, which has imposed financial penalties on its customers, has an ulterior motive in removing it from the market to the “clear benefit of certain competitors”.

A legal challenge was initiated against the regulator at the end of last week and bet365 said it is confident it would succeed in “showing that the ONJN’s actions were legally unjustifiable” when a decision is expected to be made next month.

Bet365’s concerns are chiefly related to the ONJN’s licensing process which saw the operator obtain an interim permit on 7 September, after which the firm understood it could continue to serve Romanian customers until the full implementation of the licensing regime 12 months later.

The regulator subsequently claimed bet365 had in fact operated illegally between 11 September and 30 September, stating that the interim licence only became active on 1 October, or in its own words “the first day of the following month” after getting the green light.

However the ONJN then cancelled bet365’s licence status without any notice or prior communication, despite never placing the company on its blacklist of illegal operators.

“[Bet365] through its legal representative, gave a statement, according to which, the [were] aware of the applicable legal rules,” the ONJN told eGaming Review this morning.

The ONJN has already started contacting bet365 customers and it is thought that more than 45,000 are at risk of being fined.

eGR understands that if customers co-operate with the ONJN and go to its offices, they will receive a reduced fine of RON5,000 (£800), rather than the maximum RON 10,000 (£1,600).

Bet365 said it believed it had acted in compliance with Romanian and European laws and criticised the ONJN for lacking “any form of due process and for being opaque in its decision making”.

Yet the egaming giant now faces the prospect of being permanently blocked from the country where it had a sizeable business, as well as waving goodbye to the millions it paid in back taxes.

“Bet365 has serious concerns regarding the behaviour of the ONJN and its officers and finds it impossible to reconcile the ONJN’s stated aim of protecting Romanian players with its recent actions,” the company said in a statement.

“Not only has the ONJN ignored due process in its actions against bet365, its recent instigation of proceedings against players serves to demonstrate how the consumer protection the ONJN purports to provide for Romanian citizens has been largely betrayed.”

The company has contacted its Romanian customers in order to offer legal support to them.

“It is unclear what purpose ONJN’s actions serve other than simply to raise funds for the state, at the expense of Romanian citizens, who were reliant on publicly available information, and who had every justification to do as they did,” bet365 said.

“The only other possible explanation is that such actions represent clear discriminatory treatment of bet365 which assists in removing bet365 from the market to the clear benefit of certain of its competitors.”