ElectraWorks Limited hit with Gambling Commission fine

In the United Kingdom, the Gambling Commission regulator has ordered prominent online casino operator ElectraWorks Limited to pay a fine of £350,000 ($488,640) for repeatedly breaching advertising standards when it came to promoting ‘free bonuses’ on its websites. According to a press release from the Gambling Commission, the Gibraltar-headquartered operator was warned by the Advertising Standards Authority Limited in August of 2016 about an advertisement on its United Kingdom-licensed Bwin.com domain that purportedly offered a ‘free bonus’. The regulator declared that it had cautioned ElectraWorks Limited about the same site featuring such an advert a week later with the firm subsequently removing the offending instance. The Gambling Commission declared that these instances had breached a rule that all of its licensees must abide by the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice and the Committee of Advertising Practice codes when it comes to the utilization of terms such as ‘bonus’ and free bet’. Despite this occurrence, the Gambling Commission explained that it discovered similar breaches on ElectraWorks Limited-owned sites CasinoLasVegas.com, PartyPoker.com, SCasino.com, NobleCasino.com, CasinoKing.com and PartyCasino.com in April before June saw the same six domains repeat the infractions while CasinoLasVegas.com went on to chalk up a third infringement in August. The Gambling Commission stated via a second release (pdf) that the 14 offending advertisements had not stated the ‘significant limitations and qualifications’ attached to the bonuses ‘despite there being space to do so’ while it moreover cautioned ElectraWorks Limited for failing to ensure that the person in charge of its marketing duties had held ‘the requisite personal management license’. “This fine should serve a warning to all gambling businesses that we will not hesitate to take action against those who mislead consumers with bonus offers or fail to ensure they are correctly licensed,” read a statement from Richard Watson, a member of the Gambling Commission’s Business Plan Programme Board.