Lottoland granted full insurance licence

Online lotto betting operator Lottoland have yesterday announced that they have been granted an insurance licence by the Financial Services Commission (“FSC”) in Gibraltar in accordance with EU insurance legislation. This newly established insurance company Fortuna Insurance PCC Limited (“Fortuna Insurance”), is a subsidiary of Lottoland Holdings Limited.

Lottoland is the first and only company in the gaming sector to have established its own insurance company – holding itself up to the highest standard with regards to industry best practice and transparency.

Fortuna Insurance will underwrite all the bookmaking risks of Lottoland and will be regulated by the FSC in Gibraltar and the European Insurance and Occupational Pension Authority (“EIOPA”), which will both ensure that Fortuna Insurance will be compliant with the European Solvency II regime. The newly established insurance company will have a board and management team consisting of five experts, who will provide in depth insurance and reinsurance, financial markets, regulatory as well as gaming know-how to the company.

This is a historic milestone for Lottoland – transforming it’s industry leading risk management into its own fully authorised and licensed insurance company. Lottoland’s (re)insurance structure, which combines both risk carrying markets (i) insurance linked securities (“ILS”) and (ii) traditional (re)insurance), consists of the highest coverage in the market for the underlying gaming business (namely, lotto betting). The underlying gaming risk is highly modelled giving an extremely detailed degree of predictability and security to risk carriers as well as Lottoland and its customers. Fortuna Insurance has top ILS investors and rated reinsurers as its counterparts further adding to the robustness of its insurance. It is this structure that gives Lottoland flexibility to innovate driving higher value and jackpots for its customers and investors while always ensuring they can pay-out on all prizes in a timely manner.

Last month, Lottoland announced a second two year ILS transaction, which will now be transferred to sit under Fortuna Insurance. This transaction is fully collateralized through cash trust accounts and letters of credit, and is the largest ever reinsurance deal in the Gambling sector. All previous investors have shown their confidence in Lottoland by participating in the new transaction, and a handful of new investors also come on-board.

Lottoland’s risk management structure has already proven its reliability, covering several major wins. The largest win paid out by Lottoland so far was €22 million and was won by a player from Berlin in 2016. So far, Lottoland players have won over €900 million across its business portfolio. Fortuna Insurance, provides Lottoland with even more flexibility to innovate and offer new games to players.

Other operators can also benefit from Lottoland’s proven lottery insurance solution thanks to Lottoland’s B2B arm Lottoland Solutions. Lottoland Solutions guarantees pay outs on all winnings now through Fortuna Insurance and offers a lottery betting interface that is easy to integrate into existing websites. Customers of William Hill Australia, Kindred Group plc and Gaming Innovation Group plc, are already benefitting from a partnership with Lottoland Solutions.

Lottoland CEO, Nigel Birrell, said, “The fact that Lottoland is the first and only company in the gaming sector to have done this, highlights our commitment to industry best practice and transparency. This is huge step forward not just for Lottoland but also for the gaming industry.”