GameArt in trouble (again) after having used false and misleading reference to the Malta Gaming Authority
Editor’s note: This article was published in 2018 and may not reflect GameArt’s position today. Since then, GameArt has been completely restructured with a new team and CEO.
If you’ve never heard of GameArt it’s not real surprise. They simply aren’t very popular. What’s even worse is that they’ve been caught red-handed using shady methods, resulting in their credibility spiraling down to absolute zero.
Earlier this year, a Casinomeister member raised concerns regarding a GameArt slot titled Thunder Bird. The member had been playing the game in fun mode and was triggering a large number of bonuses, something that made the alarm bell go off. Starting off with $500 in demo mode, the member had amassed a $100k balance within half an hour, something that repeated itself over several sessions.
A representative of the casino that hosted the game, also active on the Casinomeister forum, initially denied any issues, claiming the RTP to be the same in both demo and real mode. At that time, however, the representative had likely not carried out any tests himself, and to his defense, he likely did not see any immediate cause for concern as players all too often accuse slots of being “rigged”. The fact that GameArt claims their slots to be audited and tested by NMi – one of the most widely used Gaming Fairness Labs – was likely another reason why the accusations were not taken seriously at first.
As the forum thread progressed, other members joined in to test the game and it soon became apparent that something was seriously wrong – everyone was winning in demo mode. At this point, the representative made the decision to pull all GameArt slots to investigate the matter. Having been pushed to the wall by the community, GameArt folded and confessed to having used a different RTP for the demo mode, something that came as no surprise at that point, but led to outrage and caused further damage to an industry already struggling with trust and transparency issues.
GameArt is since back live on the casino, but new serious issues have surfaced. On the 15th of June, the Malta Gaming Authority published a statement declaring to have no connection with GameArt Limited or gameart.net, and that – “any reference to the MGA or gaming licence/s said to be issued by the Maltese Authority, as stated by GameArt Limited are false and misleading.”
