SBC News

BVGroup has named Tracy McGrady as the Safer Gambling Ambassador in Canada for its BetVictor brand.

The seven-time NBA All-Star played for the Toronto Raptors, Orlando Magic, Houston Rockets, New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons, Atlanta Hawks and the San Antonio Spurs, all during his 16-year career.

Brent Almeida, CCO of BVGroup, noted: “We are thrilled to have signed Tracy McGrady to BetVictor to promote Safer Gambling.”

Almeida described the player as the ‘perfect role model’, with an amazing career across 16 seasons in the NBA. He said: “Aligning with him is a perfect fit for the BetVictor brand.”

The Gibraltar-headquartered operator currently has gambling licences in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Ontario and Gibraltar.

It was only last year that BetVictor revealed the new group corporate identity, including a new company name, logo and website, switching to BVGroup to ‘reflect its position’ as a multi-brand gambling operator and B2B technology solutions provider – whilst also ackn..

Spanish gambling has been made aware of an “intrusive amendment” sought by the government to reimpose advertising restrictions on licensed operators.

Revealed by the Spanish online gambling association Jdigital, the PSOE/Sumar government has adopted an “unrelated amendment” to the Decree to Establish a State Agency for Public Health.

The amendment will reintroduce advertising restrictions, limiting gambling advertisements on social media platforms, prohibiting bonus promotions, and banning the use of public figures.

Reviewed by the Supreme Court of Spain, the above restrictions were “partially annulled” in April, as articles of the Royal Decree on Advertising – the Spanish government’s federal mandate to impose restrictions on gambling advertising across Spanish media.

Judges sided with an appeal from Jdigital and the Information Media Association (AMI), who had accused the Ministry of Consumer Affairs of bypassing “federal applications” to include the restrictions as measures of t..

BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register of Australian gambling, will undertake its first statutory review.

As confirmed by Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, the government has appointed Richard Eccles to conduct the review, evaluating BetStop’s progress against its founding objectives.

BetStop came into existence in August 2023 to serve as a national, unified gambling self-exclusion scheme available across all six federal states.

The register is operated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), who, in 2022, were granted new federal controls on safer gambling duties across Australia.

As agreed by the gambling authorities/boards of the Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory, and Tasmania, all licensed operators must register their player databases with BetStop, regardless of the state in which they are licensed.

The ACMA reports that since its launch in August 2023, over 30,000 Australians have signe..

Jake Pollard
Jake Pollard reports that an amendment introduced over the weekend will kick off the regulatory process that could see the last major western European market regulate its online casino sector.

The French government introduced an amendment over the weekend to regulate online casino and has set in motion the process that could see France become a regulated iCasino market, but the regulatory format that has been outlined has led the country’s land-based casinos to say that it is “tantamount to signing their death warrant”.

The amendment paves the way for the legalisation of the vertical, which stakeholders have been calling for for many years, and, if passed, would see France become the last major western European market to host a legal and licensed online casino sector.

With new Prime Minister Michel Barnier seeking to raise revenues to address the country’s debt levels, which currently stand at 112% of its gross domestic product while its public deficit is at 5.5% of GD..

The government is considering new policies and strategies to reduce gambling harms, including a review of new research on gambling advertising.

Stephanie Peacock, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) responded to questions on the DCMS’s assessment of “the potential impact of gambling companies advertising through sports clubs on problem gambling.”

On sponsorships, Peacock stated that all major UK sports bodies have established individual Codes of Conduct on Gambling Sponsorships, which set minimum standards and duties for gambling partnerships to follow.

The coverage of gambling sponsorships in UK sports will be significantly reduced by the Premier League’s pledge to ban front-of-shirt sponsorship by gambling firms by the end of the 2025/26 season.

Labour trusts ASA codes and controls
With regard to broadcast and media advertising, the government upholds the codes of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) as the independent body responsible for regulating ..

Roumen Spetsov, Director General of Bulgaria’s National Revenue Agency (NRA), has expanded the country’s online gambling blacklist with 52 more operators.

After an exhaustive investigation by the national gambling regulator, its specialised branch – the Electronic Audit of Systems of Gambling Operators (EASGO) – concluded that the websites in question were targeting Bulgarian users without having an active licence under the gambling law.

Upon visiting the websites, some of which were bearing domains from Armenia (.am) and Kazakhstan (.kz), customers were met with advertising banners and accompanying text inviting users to participate in the illegal games by creating a player profile and then opening an account for deposits and withdrawals – all of which made easily accessible.

Roumen Spetsov/LinkedIn
“I order for the provision of online games on the following websites operating without a licence under Bulgarian law to be suspended within three days of this decision,” Spetsov said i..

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has set out its approach to combat unlicensed gambling threats, viewed as a source of crime impacting society.

The mandate is led by Chief Executive Andrew Rhodes as the Commission upholds its “corporate strategy to increase investment, resources, and capacity to tackle illegal gambling”.

Unlicensed gambling is viewed as a crime and an economic threat as illegal operators contribute no tax and undercut a legitimate market, thereby failing to protect consumers.

To date, the Commission’s enforcements against unlicensed operators have focused on disrupting illegal operations by blocking URLs, denying payments, and making illegal products inaccessible.

Cooperation with wider authorities, technology partners, and international regulators has seen the UKGC impose over 750 cease-and-desist notices. Over 78,000 URLs have been referred to Google and Microsoft, with 50,000 removed and 255 websites taken down.

As UK gambling adjusts to new rules and technica..

KELA, the Social Insurance Institute of Finland has revised its policy on gambling and social benefits effective from October 2024.

The Institute serves as the general provider of economic assistance and securities for Finnish communities and citizens.

With the new policy, KELA will now examine both winnings and gambling expenditures when assessing economic support for individual recipients.

Previously, KELA only considered gambling winnings in its evaluations of social assistance. This policy change comes from KELA’s decision to monitor gambling expenditure to reduce financial difficulties caused by gambling.

The updated guidelines aim to prevent social assistance recipients from being unfairly impacted by gambling winnings and to help address financial issues linked to problem gambling.

Starting in October, KELA will assess customers’ gambling accounts by calculating the difference between stakes and winnings, focusing on gambling activities over a longer period rather than just..

The Republic of Ireland will overhaul its near-century-old gambling laws, as the Oireachtas has approved the Gambling Regulation Bill (GRB) to be signed into law by President Michael D. Higgins.

The GRB underwent a decade of development and a two-year deliberation by the Houses of the Oireachtas, following its authorisation as a joint bill of Ireland’s Tri-coalition government.

The government will adopt a modern regulatory framework to govern and license gambling activities in Ireland, replacing the laws of the Betting Act of 1931.

The GRB establishes the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI), an independent statutory body responsible for overseeing the rules, standards, and conduct of Irish gambling.

Licensing requirements state that all persons or business entities offering gambling services in Ireland, including commercial and charitable organisations, must obtain a licence from the GRAI.

As part of Budget 2025, announced on 1st October, the GRAI will receive €9.1 mil..

Daniel Noboa, President of Ecuador, has re-authorized the advertising of sports betting and gambling on media networks across the Andean nation.

The decision follows President Noboa’s withdrawal of specific articles of Executive Order 421, which had been imposed on Ecuador’s Organic Law on Communication by the former government of Guillermo Lasso Mendoza in 2023.

After taking office in January 2024, Noboa ordered a constitutional review of Ecuador’s laws, which had banned land-based casinos and bingo halls since 2011, while providing no legal framework to govern online gambling activities.

A referendum in 2011 allowed former President Rafael Correa to ban land-based casinos, bookmakers, and bingo halls, a decision that opponents argue has harmed the tourism industry.

Although land-based gambling is banned, constitutionally there are no explicit laws prohibiting online gaming, creating ambiguity in the regulation of the sector.

A registry for gambling and sports betting companies w..