The High Court in London has granted Spribe a fresh interim injunction in its long-running dispute over the Aviator crash game, barring the rival Aviator companies from launching an Aviator-branded game on new platforms in Colombia, Romania and Serbia and expediting the full trial to October 2027.

Mr Justice Tappin handed down the judgment on 6 November in the Intellectual Property List of the Business and Property Courts, according to the published judgment, [2026] EWHC 2840 (BP). The judge found that confusion between the two games was “very likely”.

Who is suing whom

Although much of the coverage has framed the case as a Spribe action, the claimants are the Aviator side: Georgia-registered Aviator LLC and the Malta-based Aviator Studio Ltd and Aviator Studio Holding Ltd. Estonia’s Spribe OÜ, the supplier whose Aviator title is among the most widely distributed casino games in Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe, is the defendant and counterclaimant. A second Georgian Aviator LLC and businessman Teimuraz Ugulava have also been joined to the proceedings.

The two sides each claim to own the rights to Aviator. The Georgian courts, up to the Supreme Court, have ruled in favour of Aviator LLC on copyright and found that Spribe’s Georgian trademarks were registered in bad faith. Spribe has had more success elsewhere, securing an interim injunction covering the UK in mid-2025 and an EU-wide provisional injunction from a Maltese court against the Aviator Studio companies on 1 September this year.

What the order covers

Under the new order, which runs until further notice, the Aviator parties may not launch a crash game under the Aviator name, or with a confusingly similar logo, on any new platform targeting Colombia, Romania or Serbia. Platforms already carrying the game on or before 3 July 2026 are exempt, and the Aviator parties may apply to vary the order in respect of Serbia.

The Aviator parties must also give at least two weeks’ notice before launching in any of 28 further territories listed in the order. Separately, they offered an undertaking, accepted by the court, to give 28 days’ notice before any launch in Canada or Italy. Spribe gave a cross-undertaking in damages that extends to third parties, meaning operators affected by the injunction could recover losses if it is later found to have been wrongly granted.

The court also allowed Spribe to amend its counterclaim to add passing off and unfair competition claims covering Canada, Colombia, Ghana, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Romania, Serbia and South Africa, as well as copyright claims.

“This ruling sends an unequivocal message to copycats: you cannot hide behind borders,” Spribe founder David Natroshvili said in a statement reported by iGaming Business. No statement from the Aviator side on the ruling was available.

Trial timetable

Tappin J ordered an expedited main trial for October 2027, which the judgment notes would otherwise not have been heard until early 2028. A separate trial of preliminary issues, on whether the Georgian judgments bind the English court through issue estoppel, is set for around April 2027.

That question has already been to the Court of Appeal. In May, Tappin J ruled that foreign law governed the preclusive effect of the Georgian decisions. The Court of Appeal reversed that ruling on 2 October.

The case matters well beyond the two parties. Aviator-branded crash games are carried by hundreds of operators and aggregators worldwide, and competing rights claims in Georgia, Malta, the UK and Brazil leave distributors exposed to conflicting court orders. Until the English trial concludes, platforms in the covered markets will need to check which version of the game they carry and whether the notice obligations apply.

A new independent body called the Gambling Policy Commission has launched a review of whether Britain needs a new Gambling Act to replace the 2005 legislation, with a call for evidence open until 12 February 2027.

The commission, which launched on 9 November, describes itself as independent of government, political parties, regulators and the industry. It is chaired by Professor Jagjit Chadha OBE of the University of Cambridge, a former director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, with Professor James Reade of the University of Reading serving as chief economist, according to its launch statement.

“The last comprehensive independent review of gambling legislation was undertaken a quarter of a century ago,” Chadha said, referring to the Budd report of 2001 that shaped the 2005 Act.

Funded by Derek Webb

The commission’s website states that its seed funding has been provided philanthropically by Derek Webb, and that it is open to other funders. Webb, the inventor of the casino game Three Card Poker, founded the Campaign for Fairer Gambling and has for more than a decade financed advocacy for tighter regulation, most prominently the campaign that led to the £2 maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals in 2019. The funding arrangement was not mentioned in most of the initial trade coverage.

The commission says it will operate independently of its funders. Its committee is drawn largely from academia and public policy. Members include economists Professor Lindsey Macmillan and Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, health economist Professor Chris Bojke, legal academic Professor Janet O’Sullivan, pollster Peter Kellner CBE, sports journalist Philippe Auclair, Dr James Noyes and Thomas Savill.

Will Hutton, president of the Academy of Social Sciences, called it “a welcome initiative by an impressive group of economists and public policy experts.”

A broad remit

The commission has set out a series of objectives. They include evaluating the 2005 Act and the 2023 white paper that followed the government’s Gambling Act review, assessing recent reforms to gambling taxation, considering the case for a new Act, combating illicit gambling, reviewing the relationship between gambling and sport including horseracing, assessing gambling-related harm and improving how regulation is coordinated across government.

Trade press reports, including those from iGaming Business, said the body expects to publish a final report in 2028 and that its work would also touch on newer products such as prediction markets. Those details do not appear on the commission’s own site.

Evidence submissions can be made as PDF documents through the commission’s portal until 12 February 2027, and the commission intends to publish them.

Context

The launch comes as the industry continues to absorb the measures set out in the 2023 white paper, including statutory levy funding for research, prevention and treatment, online slot stake limits and financial risk checks, as well as the sharp increases in remote gaming duty announced in last year’s Budget. Operators and the racing industry have argued that tax rises and affordability checks are pushing players towards unlicensed sites, while campaigners say the white paper did not go far enough.

Illegal gambling is likely to be a central theme. The Gambling Commission published its first illegal gambling index on the same day the new body launched, while the British Horseracing Authority and the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities have both warned of rapid growth in black market betting traffic.

The Gambling Commission, the statutory regulator, has said it has no affiliation with the new body, according to the trade press. The government has not commented. Any recommendation for fresh primary legislation would require ministers to reopen a framework they reviewed only three years ago, though the commission’s evidence base and its funding source are likely to draw scrutiny from both industry and reform campaigners as the review progresses.

Bragg Gaming Group has named chief operating officer Morten Tonnesen as interim chief executive after Matevž Mazij stepped down from the role.

Mazij becomes a strategic advisor to the Toronto-based supplier with immediate effect, a position the company said carries no day-to-day management responsibility. Tonnesen takes over the running of the business and reports to the board, according to Bragg’s announcement on 6 November.

End of the Oryx era

Mazij has been chief executive since August 2023. He founded Oryx Gaming, the Slovenian content and platform business that Bragg acquired in 2018 and which forms the core of its B2B offering. He sat on Bragg’s board from February 2021 until July this year.

The company did not give a reason for the change and did not say whether it has started a search for a permanent successor. Its shares fell 9.2% to C$1.18 in Toronto on the day of the announcement, Gaming Intelligence reported.

Chair Matt Davey said the board’s focus for the next phase would be “disciplined execution, improving balance sheet strength, operating cash flow, and development and deployment of market leading technology, content and services”. He added that Tonnesen has the operational experience to deliver against those tests and that the board has full confidence in him.

Operator and supplier background

Tonnesen joined Bragg as chief operating officer in March 2026. He has more than 17 years of experience in igaming, sports betting and technology on both sides of the market. On the operator side he co-founded and later exited sports betting brand BetWarrior and spent six years at PokerStars. In B2B he was chief commercial officer at Shape Games, which was later sold to Kambi, and chief growth officer at engagement platform Xtremepush.

“My focus is execution, delivering for our operator partners and running a simpler and more focused business,” Tonnesen said, thanking Mazij for his support through the transition and for what he had built.

The choice of an operations executive rather than a finance or corporate development figure signals where the board sees the immediate work. Davey’s emphasis on operating cash flow and the balance sheet reflects pressure on smaller listed suppliers, which must keep funding new content and platform development while larger rivals consolidate studios and distribution. Bragg has also spent recent years expanding its US footprint, which brings fresh state-by-state certification and compliance costs.

Results next week

The handover comes a week before Bragg reports its third-quarter results, which the company has scheduled for 13 November. Those numbers will be the first test of the board’s stated priorities on cash flow and the balance sheet, and investors will be looking for any update on leadership plans alongside them.

Bragg, which is listed on both the Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker BRAG, supplies proprietary and third-party casino content, its player account management platform and a range of managed services to regulated operators in Europe and North America, including in Ontario and several US igaming states.

The move adds Bragg to a run of senior changes among casino suppliers this autumn, as content providers contend with slowing growth in core US igaming markets and tighter margins in Europe.