MGA Intervention

Tipster Limited has had its operating license suspended by the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA). This comes during a turbulent time for the operator as it moves through insolvency proceedings.  

Tipster Limited can no longer provide gambling to customers under the MGA licence as of June 27th. The operator is still required to allow registered users to access their accounts and refund any money still sitting in players’ accounts. 

This is the second licence the MGA have pulled in as many months. They also suspended Betworld247’s licenses after flagging breaches in their compliance. The operator was deemed to be failing to meet commitments to players and to payout financial commitments for its operations. 

A Turbulent Period 

On April 20 this year, the company offices of an unnamed operator in Cologne were raided by police. Bild, a tabloid newspaper in Germany, reported that 1,000 police officers from the Landeskriminalamt (LKA) of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) stormed the head offices and searched over 100 objects. They were joined by representatives from customs, a financial investigation team, and the Central Office for Organised Crime. Blod claimed that the operator in question was Tipster, though this has not been confirmed.  

Within a month of these raids, a law firm in Cologne, Heidland Werres Diederichs (HWD), was appointed as the administrator overseeing Tipster Service GMBH’s dissolution. The District Court of Cologne approved them after the company officially filed for “the initiation of provisional insolvency proceedings”. 

The licence from the Gemeinsamen Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL), Germany’s gambling regulator, has already been suspended. The GGL investigated the operations of Tipster Limited, their financial status, and how well they complied with requirements and decided to withdraw their licence in June 2023.  

The Next Stages 

Previous to the suspension of their Malta licence, the provisional insolvency administrator, Dr. Jörg Gollnick of HWD, noted that the betting operations of the Tipster Group were not affected. However, after the move from the MGA, this is no longer true, and the company can no longer facilitate gambling activity. 

The revocation is required by Malta laws as regulation 9 (1) (f) of Malta’s Gaming Compliance and Enforcement Regulations states that the MGA has the power to suspend a licence should the authorised person be bankrupt, insolvent or involved in winding up proceedings. Article 43 of the Gaming Act allows Tipster the right of appeal, though it has not been made clear whether they will exercise this option. They have also been taken off state-approved whitelists.