Maltese registered gaming company Corona Ltd was fined €300,000 by the Dutch regulator for accepting players in the Netherlands without the necessary green light of the authorities.

Corona, registered in Malta in 2008, is a subsidiary of the Betsson Group, so far Malta’s largest gaming operator owned by Swedes and listed on the Stockholm stock exchange.

The Dutch regulator – Kansspelautoreit – said it decided to impose the fine as an “offending activity” took place between May and August, 2017, related to the operation of online casinos Oranje and Kroon.

The Dutch authorities started investigations after receiving complaints regarding the sites. It resulted that while Dutch visitors had been alerted they were not allowed to access the sites, the operators did not actually bar access.

According to the Dutch regulator, the sites of the Malta-based company also violated the its rules by suggesting that customers use “the most popular online payment method in Holland”.

The Dutch authorities also investigated other sites affiliated to Betsson and operating in Holland as part of the probe. However, these drew a blank and were not found to be in violation of Dutch rules.

According to the Dutch authorities, the probe was partly a response to “the publicity that Betsson itself had sought following the tightening of enforcement regarding online games of chance without a licence as from the middle of last year”.

Betsson last year complained to the European Commission in view of plans by the Dutch authorities to impose higher fines for a wider variety of violations of gambling laws.

Betsson had also unsuccessfully pursued multiple avenues of legal recourse against the Dutch rules.