Gaming arcades owners' gamble fails

The owners of gambling arcades lost their legal battle to stop a government-backed clampdown that will see them shut down, at least till new regulations are ushered in after summer.

A judge yesterday ruled they have been operating illegally since 2007, when a new law came into force, despite the evidence of a former Gaming Authority CEO who said they had been exempted from the provisions of the law.

The judge ruled that the law did not give the authority or its CEO the liberty to grant an exemption.

Eight operators and about 25 lawyers came up with legal arguments during a court sitting on Wednesday in a bid to permanently stop the police from confiscating the allegedly unlicensed machines. It was all over yesterday when Mr Justice Albert Magri threw out their request for the issue of a warrant of prohibitory injunction.

The national crackdown on operators with unlicensed machines started on August 6 when the police turned up without any warning and began removing them.

The operators were quick to resort to the courts and they secured a temporary warrant of prohibitory injunction stopping the police from taking their machines and, in fact, only 23 were removed, affecting eight operators out of about 80.

During proceedings, lawyer Joseph Giglio said that one of the companies, Fairplay Ltd, had invested €5.5 million in the gaming market and would not have done so had the general exemption not been in place.

However, Mr Justice Magri insisted that the general exemption did not result from anywhere in the proceedings.

The Commissioner of Police had acted on the orders of the Magistrates' Court in investigating allegations of unlicensed machines being in use, the judge noted.

One of the operators who invested a substantial amount of money in his business said yesterday he would abide by the law but stressed that the operators were misguided by both the government and the authority.

They would now seek a just way through, he said, adding that the government had promised new regulations, so he would wait and see.

Attempts to contact the Finance Minister for a reaction proved futile.