【equity stake】Curaçao court rules master licence holder responsible for ‘mirror sites’

The Court of First Instance of Curaçao ordered Black Hawk Technology BV and Gaming Services Provider NV (GSP) to release transaction records and communication logs of a player who struggled with gambling addiction.

The 10 September judgment, published this week, stems from a claim brought by the Foundation for the Representation of the Interests of Victims of Online Gambling (SBGOK), which represents a player who repeatedly lost money on the online casino bk8sgs.com despite attempting to self-exclude.

Court documents reveal that the player requested a five-year self-exclusion period in September 2023 due to gambling addiction, explicitly stating: “I want to self exclude… I want to request a 5 years of self-exclusion.”

Despite this clear request, the casino allegedly reopened his account just weeks later when he asked to return.

During proceedings, GSP attempted to distance itself from the case by claiming the website was a “mirror site” — an identical copy of an existing website hosted on a different server — that wasn’t operated under its licence.

However, the court rejected this defence, noting that the casino displayed GSP’s licence information on its website.

Curaçao court says companies must provide info

Judge Bijkerk ruled that both companies must provide copies of the player’s complete betting history and all chat correspondence from May to December 2023.

He wrote: “Since GSP, as (first) licence holder, must comply with the licence conditions imposed on it, including the storage of all chat correspondence between the casinos and the players, GSP will (also) be ordered to surrender.”

The defendants have one week to comply with the order or face financial penalties.

GSP’s master licence expired on 18 August as part of the island’s gambling reform process, but the court said this doesn’t affect the ruling as the issue occurred prior to this date.