The Gaming Control Authority, part of the Ministry of Finance of Lithuania, has issued a warning to the country’s sports betting and gaming industry regarding illegal remote betting sites. 

Publishing an update today, the Authority notified the industry that ‘only properly licenced companies having special permission for this online betting operations in Lithuania.

Under Lithuanian law, the Gaming Control Authority is permitted to implement regulatory measures and penalties against operators which violate Gaming Law, notably holding the power to initiate payment blocking and DNS blocking.

Additionally, any firms found offering their services in violation of the gaming law  are blacklisted on the country’s list of illegal gambling operators.

“Furthermore, the provisions of national legal acts do not provide for the possibility to remove the reference to the subject (gambling operator) from the Blacklist, if the subject was identified as illegal gambling operator in Lithuania, domain was blocked and blacklisted,” the Authority explained.

“The only possibility to be removed from the Blacklist is to receive a license and permit to organise remote gambling in Lithuania, as it is established in the Gaming Law.”

Concluding its statement, the Authority detailed: “Control Authority strongly recommends all online gambling operators, to review all their activities related to remote gambling in the Republic of Lithuania and take actions to ensure that such services are not available for Lithuanian customers.”

Earlier this year, the Lithuanian authority hardened its stance against online operators targeting consumers in the country, issuing a similar warning to non-compliant unlicensed operators.