Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland<\/a> (GRAI) has warned that customers who sign up for offshore gambling sites have no way of ensuring they are protected in the way they are with sites regulated in Ireland or other European countries. <\/p>\n\u201cOperating without a betting licence, either issued by Revenue under the old system, or by GRAI under the new system, is unlawful,\u201d said the GRAI. <\/p>\n
One of the reviewed sites, which claims to be regulated in Anjouan, a small island part of the Comoros Islands on the east coast of Africa, was given a score of 4.63 out of five by the Sun\u2019s review.<\/p>\n
The Sun review linked to the casino\u2019s website. The online article contained a \u201ccommercial content notice\u201d. <\/p>\n
This said: \u201cTaking one of the casino offers featured in this article may result in a payment to The Sun.\u201d <\/p>\n
The review noted that casino\/bookmaker was regulated by the \u201cOffshore Finance Authority of the State of Anjouan\u201d and claimed that \u201cthis guarantees a good level of regulatory oversight\u201d.<\/p>\n
The central bank of Comoros issued a statement earlier this year to say that the entity claiming to issue Anjouan gambling licences was acting \u201cillegally\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cGambling activities are not authorised in the Union of the Comoros \u2026 the island of Anjouan does not have its own laws,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The Sun has repeatedly highlighted the problems caused by black-market gambling sites in news stories. In the UK, it is running a \u201cSave Our Bets\u201d campaign which highlights the dangers of black-market gambling sites and attacks plans to increase regulation of UK-based bookies. <\/p>\n
A Sun story earlier this year highlighted how Gambana, a bookmaker that claims to have an Anjouan gaming licence, allowed people to register using fictitious names. <\/p>\n
The now-removed betting section on the Sun website provided a top-10 list of \u201cnew\u201d casinos. Nine of the 10 websites listed last week were licensed in Cura\u00e7ao, the small Caribbean island nation which is a haven for secretive offshore gambling companies. <\/p>\n
The website ranked first by The Sun had the lowest review score all 10 online casinos. <\/p>\n
The Sun has a betting section page that explains it is overseen by its digital sports editor and its head of betting and gaming editorial.<\/p>\n
The notice said the section produces \u201cround-up articles\u201d and in some cases \u201cthe order the operators appear depends on fees paid\u201d.<\/p>\n
A recent Investigates Europe report showed that gambling sites regulated in Cura\u00e7ao were deliberately targeting the 500,000 people in the UK who have self-excluded from regulated gambling sites by signing up for the UK\u2019s Gamstop programme. <\/p>\n
Across the European Union, illegal online gambling generated more than \u20ac80 billion in revenue in 2024.<\/p>\n
The Sun\u2019s betting section notice said none of its \u201cpartners\u201d have any say on content or editorial control. It said the \u201cpartners\u201d pay for placements of offers on some pages, and this is \u201cclearly marked sponsored\u201d. <\/p>\n
It said reviews include sign-up links to the operator, \u201cwhere we generate affiliate revenue depending on the individual deal\u201d.<\/p>\n
The notice said the editorial team\u2019s core values include \u201cjournalistic integrity\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish Sun has removed its sponsored online casino review section after it was asked why it promoted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,134948,61,60],"class_list":["post-509436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gambling-regulatory-authority","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}