Malta’s prime minister insists that the local gaming regulator is doing a good job monitoring its licensees, despite media reports to the contrary.

Late last week, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was queried in parliament regarding the recent wave of bad publicity involving the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) and some of its Italian-facing online gambling licensees.

Muscat (pictured0 was responding to a list of questions submitted by Partit Demokratiku MP Godfrey Farrugia, who wanted to know why the MGA only seemed to act against Italian licensees after the Italian police launched waves of arrests. Case in point: February’s bust of ‘betting king’ Benedetto Bacchi, which led the MGA to suspend the license of Bacchi’s Phoenix International Ltd one day later.

Farrugia asked Muscat to explain “what failed” in the current monitoring policies that allowed Phoenix to obtain and maintain its MGA license, and whether these monitoring policies had changed following Bacchi’s arrest.