The betting authority from Cyprus decided to suspend the license of Royal Highgate for two months.

The National Betting Authority announced this week that Royal Highgate Public Company Ltd has seen its operations license suspended for two months for failing to comply with its terms.

According to the authority’s announcement, Royal Highgate will not be able to provide betting services as the 2012 law on betting establishes that for violations its license has been suspended for two months. The same procedure applies for all establishments acting as authorized representatives of the company, the authority said.

In October, the authority announced it will conduct a quantitative survey to assess Cypriot gamblers’ habits. The survey will record gambling habits (frequency of participation, behaviour, characteristics) of people engaging the activity in order to determine protective policies to prevent gambling problems. The study will be conducted among 3k randomly selected individuals and will include groups of ages 13 to 17, 18-34, 35-49, 50-64 and 65-older. The NBA explained that it will also try to identify how well known is the difference between legal and illegal gambling, while attempting to categorise gambling profiles (social, pathological, addicts, etc).

The government confirmed that it’s aiming to regulate bingo gambling in the country.

Harris Georgiades, Finance Minister of Cyprus, confirmed that the country is preparing a legislation in order to regulate bingo activity. The official said that whilst bingo would continue after regulations, they need to secure national interest and social benefit.

By regulating bingo, the government would seek national interest in the game as well as social benefit, as it is considered to have an annual turnover of approximately US$120 million in Cyprus. “It is an activity whose turnover, according to estimates, exceeds €100m per year but has been done in a completely unregulated way,” said the Minister.

Georgiades also confirmed that the government has submitted to parliament a measure that aims at privatising the state lottery and bring the entity under control of the betting authority of Cyprus. He also confirmed that parliament is considering another bill that wants to regulate games offered by gambling monopoly OPAP.

Back in October, the National Betting Authority (NBA) annoynced that it would conduct a quantitative survey to assess Cypriot gamblers’ habits. The survey records gambling habits (frequency of participation, behaviour, characteristics) of people engaging the activity in order to determine protective policies to prevent gambling problems.

Betfred is set to expand the reach of its new TradeFred Forex and CFDs online trading platform into Cyprus, according to LeapRate.com.

The result of a partnership between Betfred and Vanuatu-registered MagicPath Capital, the platform went live in June.

At the time of its launch, TradeFred only held a licence issued by the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission and had not been not cleared for operations in the UK or Europe.

However, LeapRate.com has reported that TradeFred will soon expand with a new Europe-regulated entity in Cyprus and has established a subsidiary in the country to support the move.

TradeFred is also expected to announce that it has obtained a CIF licence from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, which will allow it to take clients from European countries and the UK.

MagicPath is listed as the owner of the TradeFred brand, while Betfred serves as a technology provider.