The Court this morning overturned a request by gaming operators for a warrant of prohibitory injunction stopping the police from elevating machines from eight gaming arcades.

Mr Justice Albert Magri had granted a temporary warrant on August 6 on the request of the eight companies following a nationwide clampdown on gambling outlets. The companies are: Allied Games Ltd, Best Play Ltd, Gaming Operations Ltd, Media Gaming Malta EU Ltd, Laak Ltd, Vanguard Gaming Ltd, Zammit Videomatic Ltd and Silver Play Ltd.

In his decision, given this morning, he said that the fact that operators did not have a licence to operate video lottery terminals was not contested.

When the legal notice was issued after October 1, 2007, VLTs became illegal but operators insisted they were exempted from the application of the relevant article by the CEO of the Gaming Authority.

Although there were no documents to justify this allegation, the evidence given by the former CEO in court seemed to confirm this.

However, the court could not accept the operators' argument since the law did not allow the handing down of exemptions by anyone.

The police commissioner, the Court said, had been acting on the order of the Magistrates' Court to investigate the use of unlicensed VLTs.

In such circumstances, the Court did not have the power to issue the requested prohibitory injunction since this would stop the police in their investigations.

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