The financial services corporation Mastercard is being sued for $19 billion following allegations it charged illegally high fees on store transactions for 16 years. Law firm Quinn Emanuel filled the class action lawsuit at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal last week. It is stated that Mastercard charged unlawfully high fees to stores when shoppers swiped their […]

Tech giant Apple announced the changes in its iMessage design, enabling developers to bring third-party applications to the platform. The beta version of iMessage application presents music and GIF sharing applications added to the texting service. Moreover, upcoming iOS 10 update is allowing integration of blockchain based payment applications. One of the third party apps […]

The UK Gambling Commission released a paper this week on in-play betting. The paper clarifies that no current regulatory adjustments are necessary as the controls of the current framework are sufficient and do not require further measures. In-play betting is being banned in some countries, for example in Australia. However, UKGC disagrees that this form […]

Canada’s lawmakers will vote on a bill amending the national criminal code which would allow single-game betting. According to Legal Sports Report, the House of Commons is scheduled on September 21 to determine whether to send the legislation called C-221 (Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act) to the Committee on Justice and Human Rights for […]

Russia’s campaign against illegal online gambling has reached foreign and domestic social networks. Roskomnadzor, a Russian telecom watchdog, has been monitoring hundreds of online sites and adding unauthorised online gambling domains to its blacklist. In August Roskomnadzor also started blacklisting social media accounts belonging to online gambling websites and operators. The strategy that aims to […]

Malta has intentions of becoming the first European country regulating Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS). Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has announced that daily fantasy sports will no longer require gambling licence. This decision towards the skill-based licensing framework is expected to take Malta to the very centre stage of DFS action in Europe and to attract […]

China’s largest search engine Baidu has removed advertising for bitcoin and all other forms of digital currency from its online service. Domestic media reported on Friday that Baidu “has stopped all virtual coin related keyword advertising (paid search), including bitcoin.” The fact that the country’s most popular search engine froze cryptocurrency ads was also confirmed […]

The Philippines will issue new online gambling licenses for companies that target overseas customers. The new government, under President Rodrigo Duterte has confirmed it will not renew licences of electronic bingo operators and gaming technology provider Philweb Corp which operates around 300 e-games outlets in the country. However, it is expected to offset the loss […]

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is discussing approving a “small but significant number of firms” using the blockchain technology within the fintech industry in the United Kingdom. UK’s financial watchdog is monitoring projects as part of organization’s “Project Innovate” program. According to the Financial Times, FCA confirmed there is a number of groups in the […]

California lawmakers will not be voting on online poker bill, AB 2863, in the State’s Assembly on Monday 22nd August. The bill was thought to be the best chance of legalised online gambling in California and was called the Internet Poker Consumer Protection Act. Assemblyman Adam Gray, who was the one to introduce the bill, […]

The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) has announced it will allow licensed online-gambling companies to begin accepting virtual currencies as a payment medium as of October 31, 2106. Virtual currencies, by definition, include Bitcoin and other digital offerings. The change in conditions was added via an update to the UKGC’s Licence Conditions and Codes of […]

Russia’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor has ordered banking and payment processors to purge unauthorized online gambling operators from their client lists. According to Russian news agency, the Izvestia, Roskomnadzor sent letters to Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, as well as payment processors including Skrill and Yandex instructing them to remove gambling operators from their customer-base in compliance […]