Turkish and Hungarian regulators block access to gambling websites

ish and Hungarian gambling regulatory bodies have announced banning orders on a multitude of i-gaming operators, restricting access to their sites.

High profile operators such as BwinParty, Bet365 and Ladbrokes have been added to Hungary’s blacklist after being served restriction orders by the country’s Gambling Supervision Department (GSB), while Turkey’s Telecommunications Authority (TIB) and National Lottery have joined forces to block 110 gambling websites over the past five years.

The GSB has expanded its list of unlicensed operators after they allegedly targeted consumers in the country without having received official authorisation from regulators.

Betsson, Betclic, Unibet, Bet-at-home, Sportingbet, 10Bet, Fortunawin and Mayplay were already included on the list.

In Turkey i-gaming operators have been strictly prohibited since online gambling was deemed illegal in 2000.

According to the Worldbulletin.net website the National Lottery and TIB have been working together to combat i-gaming for a number of years.

The National Lottery has taken action against 440 websites in the past five years, pushing for the closure of 93 websites in 2009, 119 in 2010, 110 in 2011, 88 in 2012 and 93 in 2013. Of the 440 challenged by the National Lottery, the TIB deemed 110 of these to be illegal and subsequently blocked access to them, according to a report released by the TIB on Monday.

Turkey outlawed land-based gambling premises in 1997, although many of these services transferred online.

The national government then passed another law in 2007 to reinforce the 1997 ban and implement new measures to combat gambling activity. This included the TIB being provided with the authority to block access to gambling websites.