Metaverse Casino Slotie Faced Four Cease-and-Desist Orders in the US
Yesterday Texas, Kentucky, Alabama, and New Jersey hit metaverse casino Slotie with emergency cease-and-desist orders for allegedly violating gambling laws.
Slotie, which started operating last year, is currently based in Georgia; the casino offers its non-fungible tokens to investors as a ticket to the “largest and fastest growing online casino network on the blockchain”. Since the inception of Slotie’s NFTs, digital assets that show one-of-a-kind part of the metaverse casino owned, over 10,000 of them have been sold to the public.
The casino is currently hosted by Sandbox, one of the largest metaverses available, and claims to be the “Las Vegas of the metaverse”. In Q1, Slotie raised more than $10m in Series A funding from a venture capitalist group.
As rot the states’ accuse, the casino was found to be the one that defrauded investors, and it was ordered to immediately stop the sale of its NFTs to retail investors. All the states mentioned allege Slotie’s owners have solicited traders to participate in unlawful gambling.
According to the cease-and-desist orders, while Slotie’s NFTs are securitized, they have not provided investors with essential contact information, such as the founder’s names, a business address, telephone numbers, or email.
The casino is also alleged in non-compliance when asked to disclose financial information such as total revenue, assets, liabilities, and so on. Slotie was ordered to stop selling to investors until the security is registered correctly in all four states; otherwise, it risks a fine of up to $10,000.
The Texas state securities board director Joe Rotunda told CNBC that while the metaverse provided legitimate business opportunities, it could “bear significant undisclosed risks,” which could sometimes “leave investors virtually broke”.
In other news, Monarch Casino & Resort reports a 20% Q3 net revenue year-on-year increase.
