Published On: Thu, Jun 21st, 2018

Norway Hires New Gaming Regulatory Chief

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A new gaming regulatory chief has been appointed in Norway, at a time when the country is prepping to battle illegal online gambling sites. Gunn Merete Paulset was appointed as Chief last week by the Lotteri-og Stiftelsestilsynet, which is the Norwegian Gaming Authority.

 

Paulset comes with eight years of experience in the NGA. Though she left the organization in 2015, the NGA hired her back as a replacement to Atle Hamar, who is now working with the Ministry of Climate & Environment. Paulset possesses a degree in Law, which is expected to help her in the current situation; a situation that will be extremely challenging from a legal perspective.

 

A ban on block payments

 

The Norwegian government is seeking to implement new rules that will ban local financial entities from accepting block payments made in favor of internationally licensed gambling sites. The illegal sites are seen as a major hindrance to the local state-owned operators, Norsk Tikstoto and Norsk Tipping.

 

The government submitted the “regulations concerning the prohibition of the processing of payments for gambling without a Norwegian license” to the European Commission for approval earlier this month. The current standstill issued by the EC is valid till the 5th of September. Norway is looking to launch the new regulations by January 1st of 2019.

 

Current regulations

 

Banks in Norway are already barred from processing payments for international gambling sites. However, the new rules offer more clarity and ban all payment transaction from and to companies that handle transactions for foreign gambling companies.

 

Last year, the NGA blacklisted seven companies, claiming that they processed over $200 million of online gambling payment for international gambling firms. It was later found that two of the seven companies, Entercash and Trustly, continued offering their services in Norway by simply shifting to new account numbers.

 

As a response to such issues, the NGA wants greater powers to enforce more stringent rules against the processing of block payments based on company names. As of now, the NGA can only block individual transactions, which means companies can continue operating by simply acquiring new account numbers.

 

Additionally, the NGA also wants to be able to access suspicious transaction data, which it believes is necessary for conducting further investigations. However, the issue of data privacy currently stands in its way.

 

The NGA, last year, managed to get approval for a measure that bans international operators from advertising to local punters. The measure achieves this via DNS blocking.

 

The NGS swears that all its efforts are in the best interests of the citizens and not a way to support the state-owned gambling operators.

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