The LGA Malta http://www.lga.org.mt/ is a regulatory body that is responsible for the governance of various forms of gaming offered by its licensees. With a little bit of research, it seems to be the most prevalent gaming authority in the poker world, especially in Europe. A quick look at the "Licensees" link shows that it regulates pretty much all of the big European networks (including individual skins), as well as PokerStars.eu. (http://www.pokerstars.eu/malta/)

PokerStars was approved for the Maltese License in February of 2012. This allowed PokerStars to function more freely within the European Union (as Malta is an EU country) and thus offer many countries intra-country tax-free play whilst being under proper regulation.


The Situation

I have not been able to have any contact with the LGA Malta since August 11th, 2013, almost 6 months ago. I have multiple ongoing investigations with the LGA regarding poker sites that have avoided payments. During these last 6 months, I have sent 6 e-mails to the LGA (all forwarded to all three LGA contacts I have) with none of them granted responses except for an "out of office auto-reply" in October of 2013. In the past two months, I have repeatedly called the LGA Malta at least 8-10 times, and every single time I get the same story from the same secretary that the person I'm trying to reach, Frances Blenheim, is not currently available and to try again tomorrow. (Note that on her FBk page, it states that she's been a Manager at LGA Malta since early 2004.) It's the same routine every time. I ask to speak with her, secretary asks me my name and to hold, comes back after 30 seconds and says she's not available but takes my number so she can return my call. The call is never returned. I've also asked to simply speak with anyone at all at the LGA and the secretary has assured me that Frances is the only person that handles investigations.

Note that I know at least 5+ other people with precisely the same experiences as myself, having communication severed by the LGA Malta around August of 2013. All of these people have ongoing investigations where they're owed 5-6 figure sums by poker sites that disappeared but were under LGA Malta jurisdiction, and none of them are able to contact the LGA about it now or gain any sort of update on their situation.


My Prior Experience With the LGA Malta

I have been dealing with the LGA Malta as far back as September of 2012. The first of two investigations was regarding NinoPoker, an Everleaf Network skin which owed me 20,000€ and refused payment. At the time, Lorann Bonnici was the person I was dealing with and she helped put pressure on Everleaf (I assume) to the point where they paid me ~75% of what they owed me. The remaining unpaid amount is still under investigation, and I was told that nothing can be done at this time as it's now a police matter.

My first contact with Frances Blenheim was May 2013 regarding a situation where a PokerInVenice (PIV) Gaming skin (4Donk Poker) owed me in excess of $51,000. Over the next three months, I was in contact with Frances regarding the investigation and the LGA Malta (encouraged by many many players unpaid hundreds of thousands of dollars) put enough pressure on PIV Gaming to have most players paid at least some of their money. I am still owed roughly 20,000€ from PIV Gaming who seems to continue to operate with a fancy new website. I am unable to contact anyone at PIV (the original room owner, Cesare Florio who I spoke with over the phone regarding my payments has disappeared) and I'm now also unable to contact anyone at the LGA Malta.


Purpose of This Thread

I'm skeptical at this point that I'm going to ever see any of the money that is owed to me. If I did as a result of this thread, that would obviously be fantastic. But the goal of this thread is to make the poker community aware that many (if not most) of the poker sites they play on are regulated and licensed by only the LGA Malta, a regulatory body that no longer functions. It is now evident that any of these skins/networks can conceivably walk away from all user accounts without payment or penalty, and there will be no regulatory body acting for the players' rights. I think it's incredibly crucial for the future of online poker safety that we as the players work towards putting pressure on these entities to provide some sort of resolution to this that we can feel good about. I also expect to hear something from PokerStars who preaches players' rights and security, as LGA Malta seems to be an integral license for their full functionality in Europe.


The contact details on the website for LGA Malta for anyone interested in trying to gain information (good luck!) are as follows:
Lotteries and Gaming Authority. Suite 1, Level 3, TG Complex, Brewery Street, Mriehel, Birkirkara BKR 3000, Malta
Tel: +356 2546 9000 | Fax: +356 2144 6950 | Email: info@lga.org.mt

well put lefort!

Same is true for me, many emails sent but with no reply! waiting for money for over a year now from the PIV/LGA situation.
Maybe you should post the number you have contacted so others can also try and see if anything comes from it?

I have pretty much the same experience as you, except for getting any % of my withdrawals backs as a result of my contact-attempts. Thanks for the effort of putting this out to the community.

The LGA has acted nothing short of shady and very unprofessional with my requests to investigate the Poker In Venice (PIV) fraud. I suspect they're either incompetent and/or don't care and/or are part of the scam(s).

exact same experience with PIV, LGA and Francis, have never been paid anything

id be shocked id LGA Malta was EVER a functioning body of "gaming authority". online poker scene is so corrupt

Great post OP. Sucks being in limbo with these shady sights, but not much else we can do but educate the general public

Here are some of the earlier, similar threads related to the LGA:

Tell sites not to support the LGA

Lotteries and Gaming Authority of Malta: scammers / thieves?

LGA Malta: Is your roll safe with them?

Re: The safety of player funds on the Merge Gaming Network.

IMO, the LGA is a corrupt organization with no real purpose except to lend false legitimacy to online gambling sites in exchange for money. They are at the root of much of the corruption within online poker sites as they serve no real player protection function to speak of.

Thanks for that Xanadu..

Does anyone have any ideas as far as what we can do at this point? Maybe someone with some legal understanding or a legal background?

For subtantial amounts of money, consult a specialized attorney firm and see which legal advise they give you.

I've found some new LGA material thanks to PokerFuse:

Quick Summary about newly hired Mr Joseph Cuschieri as Executive Chairmen of LGA Malta in December of 2013, and his attitude towards player safety/security.

Slightly longer version of the article with more details.

I did a bit more research on Joseph Cuschieri and found his website: http://www.josephcuschieri.com/index.php?id=15.

I tried sending an email to the office email listed on his website but it was returned as an address that doesn't exist. I have yet to try calling the office.

The media putting pressure on the LGA for answers and solutions is our best approach to get anything out of them, imo. To me it's a shame that as an industry we let these rogue organizations and sites go unchecked. It really feels like we have no real power to remove them, but we do: get people to talk about it. Lock has lost tons of business because of the thread on 2p2. The same should be done for any LGA regulated site. By them supporting the LGA they are clearly ok with fraud and player funds being stolen and thus should not have any of our business.

Hopefully this thread stays up on the forum list so that more people know about this.

Thx OP for sharing your story and starting this thread. We as players deserve better.

+1 OP

i'm still owed 5 figs from Everleaf. LGA sucks and hasnt done anything.

bump for views

this is a disgrace

+1 to seeking specialist legal advice and getting up their asses. maybe club together and form some sort of syndicate to bring this to ppl's attention and try get your money back? tip off any media that might cover the story or do some investigative journalism etc. but defo seek legal advice this is shady as fuark.

GL

Have you tried calling and giving a different name?

Some shady **** going on here as usual. Dunno why their can't be a UK government approved body for these sites since its perfectly legal and above board here. I guess for these exact reasons?

Pressure should be put on Pokerstars.eu imo.

A bunch of crooked politician types, overseeing a bunch of degenerates and crooks, who operate crooked sites for degenerates.........what could go wrong???

Really sucks to be anyone who has to deal with any of these A-holes to get their money. I would honestly lawyer up immediately.

Kahnawake was always equally corrupt. Companies just use them to gain the appearance of legitimacy.

There is such a body (the gambling commission) and later this year it will be illegal for non-uk licensed companies to offer gambling to uk customers.

Part of the tax set-up is that the uk licensed company only has to pay tax on the uk customers - hopefully this will be an incentive for companies to leave Malta as they won't have to pay tax on other customers.

I'm also surprised that twoplustwo with all their power and publicity isnt protecting the market from scammers like LGA,ELG,ENET, PIV gaming and many others..

Exactly what do you believe that we can do about this other than providing the platform to discuss it and get it out into the open? I did tweet this thread.

I remember iGaming.org posting a big report on this, and sadly enough it seems like absolutely nothing has changed. Here's the story they had on it:

http://igaming.org/poker/news/everle...c-proportions/

It doesn't matter what name you give them, they don't talk to anybody.

As they are directly accountable to the finance minister of Malta may I suggest you use his name when you call.