Gambling firms offering online betting and gambling services and facilities in Greece are likely to suspend their Greek operations, in light of the blacklist recently released by the country's gaming regulators. The list contains more than 400 hundred online betting and gambling sites, identified as operating without the government's approval.  

Wagering firms such as 888, Unibet, Betfair, Bwin, Sportingbet and Stan James are among those included in the blacklist, while many find the exclusion of PokerStars as intriguing.

Not surprisingly, gambling giants Betfair and William Hill do not appear in the list as these firms have already pulled out their services in the country during the later part of 2012. Betfair withdrew its petition for a license to operate in the Greek market in November, while William Hill followed suit in December after Greek regulators started revoking temporary licenses. Prior to this, the Greek Gaming Commission came out with a warning about blacklisting operators, who offer remote betting and gambling sites within the country's borders without the government's permission.

Now the Greek Gaming Commission has made good on its threat to blacklist unlicensed online gambling sites and from there, proceeded to implement measures that would block access to their sites. Greek Internet service providers, who allow access to the blacklisted sites, will pay fines of €50,000 for each day the site remained accessible. Blacklisted gambling firms that continue to operate, advertise or directly market their online facilities without license, will face criminal charges in addition to paying substantial amount of penalties.

The Greek government allows only real money online games that run on random number generation (RGN) technology. As it is, the partly government-owned “OPAP or The Football Prognostics Organization”, continues to be the lone holder of an approved license for such facilities.