Last week MoPlay suffered a suspension of their operator licence by the UKGC. It was confirmed on Monday that the business is now insolvent. It was also announced that customer withdrawals have been stopped.
Solvency issues
The MoPlay brand from Addison Global had its licence suspended by the UK Gambling Commission recently, with the governing body saying ‘that Addison Global Limited has breached a condition of the licence (section 120(1)(b) and is unsuitable to carry on the licensed activities (section 120(1)(d) of the Act).’
Earlier in the month, Gibraltar’s Gambling Licensing Authority, because of concerns over the solvency issues, suspended the Addison Global licence for MoPlay.
MoPlay notice informs of no withdrawals
A notice on the MoPlay website confirmed that customer withdrawals are no longer being processed. The notice at MoPlay.co.uk reading
“Please note that MoPlay’s licence has been suspended and we cannot take any further bets or accept any other gambling activity. Due to financial difficulties, we are unable to process withdrawals. We draw your attention to clause 9 of our terms and conditions which refers to the status of funds in the event of insolvency. The terms and conditions can be accessed in the My Account section of the website. We will continue to keep you updated.”
When the UK Gambling Commission suspended the MoPlay licence, pending the conclusion of the review by the GLA, the operator was permitted to return outstanding balances to customers.
At the time the UKGC said: “In accordance with section 118(4)(c) of the Act the Licensee is authorised to settle any outstanding winning bets that it has accepted in reliance of the above operating licences and return any outstanding balances to customers.
“We have informed Addison Global Limited that we expect clear messaging to consumers regarding their accounts.”
What the T&Cs say
What is in clause 9? Something that customers with funds involved may not be too happy to hear as 9.1 states “Your funds will be held separate from company funds in a mixture of bank accounts and reserve funds which we hold with our payment processors. However, if there was ever a situation where we became insolvent, your funds would not be considered separate to the other company assets and you may not receive all your funds back.”
Moving on to 9.3 in the terms and conditions at MoPlay, it states “We are required by our licence to inform you about what happens to funds we hold on account for you in the event of insolvency as set out above. The British Gambling Commission website also contains further details about customer fund protection and can be found at https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Your-rights/Protection-of-customer-funds.aspx.”
