The sprawling tendrils of the player refund drama look to finally have ensnared Curacao, much in the way they have imperilled Malta for the past few years, after a local court ruled that a refund owed to a player in Austria must be paid by an operator based on the Caribbean island.
Experts believe the ruling marks a turning point for Curacao in the long-running player refund saga — the attempts by players to reclaim all of their losses from offshore operators in European grey markets.
Last week, the highest legal authority of the Dutch Caribbean islands — The Joint Court of Justice of Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba — found in favour of an Austrian gambler.
The individual had originally won their case back in 2023, when an Austrian court ruled that she was entitled to all of the €25,518.42 lost to Raging Rhino N.V., which operates the brand LuckyDays.
This ruling is just one of thousands that have been issued in Austria and Germany over the past five years, with hundreds of millions of euros in refunds either already paid out via judgements and settlements or, more likely, blocked by gambling-friendly jurisdictions.
For the most part, this wave of pro-player judgements has created issues for Malta, where a larger number of current and former grey market gambling providers are headquartered.
That ultimately led to the infamous Bill 55, a piece of legislation which empowers judges in Malta to block rulings from foreign courts against local gambling companies, on the grounds that permitting the refunds to go ahead would violate the country’s public order.
Bill 55 remains highly controversial and is coming under sustained pressure from a series of cases currently being heard before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
Order maintained
Curacao has also traditionally offered a friendly environment for online gambling operators, albeit with a considerably more tarnished reputation than Malta.
So it has come as a surprise to many observers that judges in the Raging Rhino case have ultimately sided with lawyers attempting to transfer a refund judgement from Austria.
According to reports in the Curacao Chronicle, Raging Rhino attempted to match the Maltese defense, arguing that allowing the refund to go through would violate Curacao’s public order
Judges also refused to allow the gambling company to re-litigate the case in any way, asserting that their task was simply establishing whether the foreign judgment could be safely recognised in Curacao.
Raging Rhino were also ordered to pay €2,286.72 in legal costs, the Chronicle said.
A tipping point
Although the volume of cash involved in this case is relatively minor, it represents the tip of a potentially vast iceberg that could cost operators in Curacao huge sums.
Lawyers and litigating funding companies have spent years finding potential clients and buying up claims from anyone who gambled in Austria and Germany with an operator without a local licence.
That includes plenty of gambling companies in Curacao, which has long hosted a bustling offshore gambling community.
Until recently, that sector was almost completely hidden by opaque layers of regulation, however recent reforms on the island have forced operators to apply for new licence and, in so doing, join a public register that displays their status.
According to that register, Raging Rhino’s Curacao licence expired on March 26, but it has an application which is currently being assessed.
Although this new era of transparency remains the target of criticism, last week’s ruling demonstrates that forcing companies out into the open is also opening them up to greater legal risk.
The Raging Rhino judgement is blood in the water for the many legal teams and litigating funding firms that have hundreds, if not thousands, of player refund cases on their books.
With major support from Malta, lawyers representing gambling companies have been fairly successful in protecting their clients, following an initial wave of settlements.
Although the tide may be gradually turning against the industry, thanks to the CJEU, pro-industry lawyers still believe that player lawyers who have spent considerable sums acquiring claims are desperate to find ways to generate income while they remain stymied by Bill 55.
A weak point in the armour of Curacao operators, who have for so long resisted any international enforcement, is likely to spur a flurry of new claims and attempts to have judgments transferred from Germany and Austria.
At least one expert in online gambling law believes that this judgment will effectively end all operations in Germany and Austria for Curacao-based companies.
This would mirror the experience of Malta, which saw its local operators pushed out of Austria by the threat of refund judgments.
Maltese firms that chose not to apply for an online slots or betting licence have also exited Germany.
With judges having established a precedent that European refund judgments can be transferred to Malta, a wave of similar cases is sure to follow, raising serious questions about the status of Curacao as a haven for the offshore online gambling industry.
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