Booming Games Hit With CA$70K Fine in Ontario Over Auto-Play Slots
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario said the affected games did not meet the province’s technical standards for online casino products. Auto-play allows slot rounds to continue without a player pressing the spin button each time. Ontario bans the feature and requires every wager to be initiated manually.
The rule is intended to interrupt continuous play. A player has to make a fresh decision before another wager is placed rather than allowing a sequence of spins to run automatically.
AGCO Found Two Compliance Breaches
The regulator identified the issue during its own compliance checks. It then contacted the operator offering the affected games, and auto-play was disabled.
Booming Games was penalized under two Ontario standards:
- Standard 2.16 prohibits auto-play on slot games;
- Standard 4.09 requires registered suppliers to keep testing and monitoring gaming systems while they remain in operation.
The AGCO said Booming Games was responsible for making sure its products were correctly configured for Ontario and continued to meet local requirements after launch. AGCO CEO and Registrar Dr. Karin Schnarr said game-design rules form part of Ontario’s player-protection framework. Suppliers must prevent restricted functions from becoming available in the regulated market, she said.
The regulator’s findings put the focus on what happens after a game has already entered an operator’s lobby. Technical approval at launch does not end a supplier’s compliance responsibilities. Products still have to be checked as configurations, integrations and software builds change.
Booming Games Has 15 Days to Appeal
The CA$70,000 fine can be challenged before Ontario’s Licence Appeal Tribunal. Booming Games has 15 days to request a hearing.
The AGCO did not say that the games themselves had been withdrawn from the province. Its notice instead confirms that the prohibited function was turned off once the regulator raised the issue.
The enforcement action is also notable because the breach was found by the regulator rather than reported by the supplier. The feature had already been available for months by the time the compliance review picked it up.
Local Configurations Create Added Compliance Risk
For game studios serving several jurisdictions, that creates a compliance problem. The same slot can require different settings from one market to another, and an incorrect configuration may only affect a single territory.
Ontario is effectively putting responsibility for those local settings back on the registered supplier. In this case, the fine was tied both to the prohibited feature and to the failure to catch it through ongoing checks.
The amount is relatively modest for an established supplier, but the regulator’s reasoning carries more weight than the number itself. AGCO is treating post-launch monitoring as part of the licence obligation. Suppliers that rely too heavily on pre-release testing may therefore face enforcement even when the underlying game remains approved.