Slotty Vegas, the online home of “supercharged wins” will no longer be available to UK customers from the 18th June. In a strongly worded judgement, the UKGC unilaterally revoked Maxent’s operating licence. The Malta-based business is the first to have its gambling licence revoked since Lucky 8 Limited lost theirs in November 2018.
Maxent Limited, which also trades under the name NRR Entertainment, operates both Slotty Vegas, its flagship brand, and BetAt. These sites will continue to be available to customers around the world, but not for those from the United Kingdom.
The decision was made after a hearing convened by the Regulatory Panel. They concluded to remove the licence under Section 102(4)(b) of the 2005 Gambling Act. The Commission were not satisfied that had the business made an application for a gambling licence today, they would not meet the criteria to receive it.
In the period that Maxent has held its licence, the company has undergone a corporate restructuring including a new corporate controller. This change in corporate control is what the Hearing focussed on. As far as the commission was concerned, the source of funds to acquire and to maintain the licence was unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, the regulatory sanctions register doesn’t elaborate on why the source of funds does not meet the necessary strictures.
Trust between the commission and the company in question has entirely broken down. In addition to the suspicion of Maxent’s source of funds, the committee found that the new corporate controller has not cooperated to a satisfactory level with the GC. According to the register, the new controller has been found to be unsuitable. It also appeared that they had “provided conflicting information and had failed to be full and frank in his dealings with the commission.”
The committee gave the decision on 21st May notifying Maxent that they had until 18th June to cease operations in the United Kingdom. According to the GC’s press release, they expected the management of Maxent to “engage with all its GB customers promptly.” However, at the time of writing this article, customers have not yet been notified directly about what is to happen during the cessation period.
Slotty Vegas, especially, is a popular slots site in the United Kingdom. This is predominantly because its unique software platform which offers over a thousand slots, and the supercharged wins bonus.
