Top Sport UAB fined 3 times in 4 days

Top Sport UAB has been found guilty of 3 offences by the Lithuanian Gaming Control Authority, deemed punishable through separate fines totalling a sum of €55,000 over the course of just 4 days.

These 3 separate breaches come as the latest in a long history of non-compliance on the part of Top Sport.

The first offence led to a fine on June 5th, to the tune of €25,000 after it was found that a minor was allowed to enter a gambling establishment and place bets.

The perpetrator’s identity was left unchecked on entrance thus the operator failed to verify their age along with 2 other minors who were permitted entry to the slot machine area. Aside from this, a further violation was found as the area in question was not displaying any gambling addiction warning notice.

Just a day later, the regulator issued yet another fine for a failure to comply with technical requirements related to Top Sport’s live mobile roulette table games, which did not possess the necessary certification that may only be issued through an accredited institution.

In light of these first 2 offences, the gaming authority was already forced to issue a warning of a possible licence suspension should the operator fail to address these violations by July 1, 2023.

Subsequent to this warning, yet another financial penalty was introduced as an investigation found that Top Sport had allowed the replenishment of customer accounts with bank cards that were not registered in the same client’s name.

All of these violations and the following penalties are not final and are eligible for appeal should the operator choose to pursue such a course of action.

Top Sport is no stranger to regulator sanctions, having received no less than 4 regulatory penalties just last year.

Most notably, the Lithuania-based operator has violated legal provisions that prohibit the promotion of gambling, which led to a fine of €25,000 equalling the gambling authority’s most expensive fine, matched only by Top Sport’s recent penalties.

Additional offences from Top Sport have also focused on improperly using its digital video recording systems at its betting points, including the recording of poor-quality images that were either blurry or unclear, or even the failure to save video recording when inspected by the regulator.

The sheer volume of continued and repeated offences Top Sport has been allowed to perpetrate is nothing short of bizarre.

Enforcing regulatory legislation in such a way means that harms related to the gaming industry will continue to be perpetuated, despite the numerous fines, as these are effective in terms of retrospective reproach but not at providing a preventative mechanism that can ensure the public in Lithuania is protected from issues including and connected to problem gambling and underage gaming.

The legislation in question allows for such repeated offences as fines are the only immediately actionable reprimand available to regulators as a more stringent course is only accessible in the form of licence suspension, which is usually forgone since the operator is allowed a period of time to correct the practices that led to the offence.

Some lenience is always beneficial to improve the functionality along with the safety of the industry, however, the violations are in such high frequency one must ask what good a system of this nature really does in terms of preventative protections.

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