ElectraWorks fined £350,000 by UKGC over bonus advertisements

ne gambling business ElectraWorks, which runs online casinos for big brands like bwin, Casino Las Vegas and Casino Swiss has been fined £350,000 by the Gambling Commission for repeatedly misleading consumers with adverts relating to free bonuses.

In addition, ElectraWorks has also received a formal warning from the Commission for failing to ensure that the person responsible for marketing at the business holds a personal management licence.

The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint against ElectraWorks following the appearance of an advert offering a free bonus on its bwin.com website in August 2016.

This breached Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) codes and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) codes, which relates to ‘free bet’, ‘bonus’ or similar offers.

Following this complaint, the Gambling Commission later discovered another advert on the Bwin website which breached the same code. This advert was later removed from the site after ElectraWorks were notified.

Six similar breaches were discovered in April 2017 on sites including: casinoking.com, casinolasvegas.com, noblecasino.com, partycasino.com, partypoker.com and scasino.com websites. A seventh breach was later found in August 2017 on the casinolasvegas.com website, also operated by ElectraWorks.

All advertisements were removed from the respective sites following notification of the breaches; however the repeated instances were sufficient for the Gambling Commission to take punitive action against ElectraWorks.

Announcing the investigations findings, Richard Watson, Commission Programme Director, said: “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.”