Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1502123
JAMES DEBONO CASINO players requesting to be excluded from Maltese casi- nos, bingo halls and gaming par- lours in 2022 stood at 1,531, an increase of 284 (22.8%) from the previous year. The data comes from the Mal- ta Gaming Authority's (MGA) annual report. Gaming operators licenced under the MGA are obliged by law to offer a self-barring facil- ity to customers. The increase is partly attrib- uted to the closure of gaming establishments like commer- cial bingo halls and casinos between 11 March and 7 June 2021 due to anti-pandemic measures. The number of people re- questing a ban from gaming establishments was still slight- ly lower than it was in 2019 when self-exclusions peaked at 1,602 but remains substantially higher than in 2014 when 1,017 players had requested self-ex- clusion. Of the 1,531 players who re- quested a self-exclusion, 59.2% opted for a one-year period, while 40.8% applied for an ex- clusion period of six months. Only one player requested an indefinite self-exclusion peri- od. 38.2% of those asking for a self-exclusion were aged 35-54, while 33.9% were 55-64; 23.1% were aged 25-34, and only 3.3% were aged 18-24; 1.6% were above 65. 76% of gamblers seeking self-exclusion were men. Nearly 1.9 million barred from online gaming In the same year, 1.9 million requests for exclusion were made by players on gaming websites licenced in Malta. The number can include in- dividual players who requested self-exclusion across multiple websites. It also includes one million who were banned by the operators themselves. Online operators are obliged to have systems in place which offer online gamblers the pos- sibility to self-exclude them- selves for a definite or indefi- nite period. Exclusions can also be imposed by the operators, in cases where there are suffi- cient reasons to indicate that the player may have gambling issues. In the case of those ex- clusions imposed by the online operator, the absolute majority (91.8%) were imposed indef- initely, in line with previous trends. Over-65s most likely to visit ca- sinos During 2022, non-Maltese players accounted for 59.2% of casino visits and for 48.1% of visits to gaming parlours. Gaming parlours, which num- bered 235 at the end of 2022, were mostly popular with men, whose visits accounted for 91.2% of the total visits regis- tered during 2022. Over-65s constituted the largest demographic category of visitors to casinos, account- ing for 29.3% of the total visits. 35-54-year-olds accounted for 24.9% of visits, followed by vis- itors aged 55-64, who account- ed for 19.4% of visits. On the other hand, the 35-54 and 25-34 age brackets consti- tutes the largest demographic category of visitors to gaming parlours, accounting for 39.8% and 31.4% of all visits, respec- tively. Visits by players from the 65+, 55-64 and 18-24 age brackets accounted for 11.4%, 10.5% and 6.9% of the total vis- its registered in 2022, respec- tively. Persons banning themselves from casinos Year Total 2014 1,017 2015 1,159 2016 1,277 2016 1,393 2018 1,585 2019 1,602 2020 1,258 2021 1,247 2022 1,531 jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt 11 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 25 JUNE 2023 Over 1,500 gamblers bar themselves from casinos Odometer fraud: Police bail lifted for dealers behind racket KARL AZZOPARDI POLICE bail for the used-car dealers who are being investigated over alleged odometer tampering has been lifted, MaltaToday has learnt. Sources told this newspaper that police investigations into the al- leged fraud are still ongoing, a year after MaltaToday revealed that hundreds of consumers were sold second-hand Japanese cars with tampered mileage gauges. The two dealerships – Rokku and Tal-Qasab – have seen their police bail lifted and are yet to be charged by the police. They had also been issued with an attach- ment order. Attachment orders are usually issued in money laundering cases. The court orders that all moneys and other movable property owed or pertaining or belonging to the suspect be taken out of suspect's control and placed in the care of a third party. In an exclusive report, this news- paper had revealed last year how hundreds of consumers were sold second-hand Japanese cars with tampered mileage gauges, in a racket involving at least two car dealerships. Cars bought from Japanese bid- ding markets on the cheap be- cause of their high mileage, would then be sold in Malta – however these had their odometers tam- pered to show low mileages. An exercise carried out by Mal- taToday on a sample of 18 cars flagged by multiple industry sources, revealed discrepancies ranging between 30,000km and 130,000km between the original mileage and the one registered in Malta. Crucially, industry sources told MaltaToday that the racket start- ed the moment the cars arrived in Malta. When cars are offloaded at Laboratory Wharf in the Grand Harbour, the police must fill in the Vehicle 5 (VEH 005) customs and police inspection form. The manual form contains sev- eral fields, including one where the car's dashboard mileage is list- ed. However, it appeared that deal- ers often used the excuse that the car battery was drained through- out their voyage at sea on the car- go ship, preventing the dashboard mileage from being read by the inspecting police officers. In these instances, the inspec- tor left the mileage field blank so that the dealer could fill it in later, when the car is restarted using a booster. Sources indicated that although there may be genuine cases of car batteries that fall flat, many times these would have been disconnected by the dealer. Rokku and Tal-Qasab have con- tinued to operate, despite being interrogated by the police last year. It is still unclear when, or if, they will be charged. Following the MaltaToday in- vestigation, Transport Malta in- creased its scrutiny of documenta- tion presented by car dealers who import used vehicles from Japan. The transport regulator later stepped in to supplant the pro- cess previously manned by po- lice officers, to verify the mileage declared in documentation from importers, with data available in JEVIC databases. Several consumers bitten by the scam also took their case to the consumer affairs authority, de- manding compensation from the dealers. The two dealers involved in the scam have continued to operate a year after the odometer scandal was uncovered by MaltaToday, with Rokku even changing its shopfront signage