On Thursday 19th February 2020 the Gambling Commission announced that they had suspended the licence of Addison Global Limited (Moplay.com) for suspected breach of licence (Section 120(1)(b) and is unsuitable to carry on licenced activites (Section 120(1)(d) Gambling Act 2005.

What does this mean for Moplay?

With immediate effect Moplay are unable to accept any new bets or gaming activity anywhere on their site. The Gambling Commission has ordered that Moplay continue to honour any existing bets and keep players informed about their accounts

Why did this happen to Moplay?

Back in 2018 Moplay sponsored Manchester United but failed to make payment for the sponsorship. In 2019 Manchester United sued Select Management Resources (a marketing representative for Moplay) for £12 million in compensation and interest*.

Given this upcoming court action, rumor is that Moplay has seen it’s investors begin to jump ship and have refused to continue providing liquidity to the company. This means Moplay may not have enough money spare to continue paying out on winning bets and so the Gambling Commission has suspended their licence in order to protect future customers.

What will happen to funds in Moplay?

At the start of 2019 Moplay reduced their protection level for player funds to “Basic”, or.. as described by the Gambling Commission “Not Protected”.

And taken from Moplay’s terms:
9.1 To play our games and place bets, you need to deposit funds. 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.

This means any player money held by Moplay will be treated as part of Moplay’s assets should the company run out of money and become bankrupt. At this point, players would become creditors and need to reclaim their money as part of the administration process.

Has this happened before?

This isn’t the first time a bookmaker has gone bust while only having a Basic (no) level of protection for player funds. In 2016 WinCashLive went into Administration resulting in hundreds of matched bettors being unable to access funds they had locked in their accounts.

At that point all players became creditors however they were at the back of the queue for money behind the company’s employees, lenders and tax-man. As a result, most only received a few pence back for every pound they were owed.

What next?

Realistically there is nothing players can do for now but wait and see if Moplay resolves their financial issues and begins trading again. If you made a deposit within the past 6 months with a VISA debit card you can contact your bank to make a chargeback and reclaim that deposit amount.

Unfortunately things like this happen from time to time and serve as a harsh reminder that matched betting is never 100% risk-free. You should never deposit money that you could not afford to lose.