The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) has announced the establishment of the Commercial Communications Committee (the 'Committee') which will be entrusted with reviewing commercial communications and assessing and determining commercial communication complaints. The MGA has also issued Commercial Communications Guidelines (the 'Guidelines') with the view of ensuring that the Gaming Commercial Communications Regulations (S.L 583.09) (the 'Regulations') are duly adhered to.
These Guidelines do not constitute new laws or substitute in any manner already existing regulations in this respect. On the contrary, they shall supplement current laws and regulations and shall serve as a comprehensive interpretation of the Regulations providing practical guidance not only to persons offering licensable game/s, whether land-based or remote, but also to persons offering marketing or promotional services to or on behalf of the licensees.
Amongst the rules envisaged in these Guidelines, the MGA has also provided further clarification on the provision of unsolicited commercial communications to self-excluded players. A self-excluded player shall not receive any commercial communication from the authorized person after 24 hours have elapsed from the player's request for self-exclusion. Further to this, the Guidelines stress the importance of the responsible gaming 'Play Responsibly' message which should be clearly displayed throughout all commercial communications and must, at a minimum, amount to 10% of the advertisement. Where this 10% requirement cannot be adhered to due to size restrictions, the authorised person shall implement alternative measures such as click-throughs.
The full version of the Guidelines may be accessed here.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
