Bookmaker Ladbrokes has followed up on its decision last year to exit a number of European markets by opting to withdraw its services from a further four countries across the continent.
The operator informed customers in Russia, Finland, Romania and Portugal that it will no longer operate in the countries due to changes in European and UK online gambling legislation.
“We continually review our presence in markets according to legal advice and regulatory conditions,” a Ladbrokes spokesperson told iGamingBusiness.
“This is an ongoing process and the markets we have withdrawn from are not material.”
The withdrawal from these four countries follows a regulatory operational review that the bookmaker undertook last year.
This review also led to Ladbrokes exiting various other European markets including Switzerland, Norway and Hungary in October last year, while the bookmaker also opted to withdraw its services from Canada in the previous month.
Ladbrokes’ latest withdrawal from the four European territories comes at a time when all four of the countries are reviewing their own online gambling regulatory frameworks.
Portugal and Romania are set to unveil new online gambling regulatory structures this year while the situation in the Russian market remains a cloudy one after national regulators issued warnings to several operators deemed to have breached national regulations.
Ladbrokes did not confirm whether it will re-enter any of the four markets in the future.
source : www.igamingbusiness.com
