The island that won a slice of PokerStars business from the Isle of Man has been plunged into political and economic problems.

The rival offshore gaming jurisdiction of Malta has been making the headlines in the last few days.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has announced he will resign in January following pressure from citizens for the truth about a 2017 car bombing that killed a journalist.

And European Union politicians have urged Maltese and EU authorities to investigate Malta’s top lender, the Bank of Valletta.

Last month Business News reported that PokerStars’ revenue plunged by more than 96% in the Isle of Man according to the latest third quarter financial performance figures from parent company The Stars Group.

It appeared the migration of the ’dotcom’ licence from the island to Malta may have been a significant factor in the decline in returns for the island company where more than 400 people are employed.

The Stars Group confirmed it had recently migrated the business to customer business (B2C) from the island to the Maltese licensing structure.

EU state Malta has emerged as a growing base for online gaming companies. The Isle of Man lost Paddy Power’s online gaming business to Malta a few years ago.

In a televised message at the weekend, PM Mr Muscat said he has informed Malta’s president that he will quit as leader of the governing Labour Party on January 12.

He said ’in the days after I will resign as prime minister’.

Hours earlier, thousands of Maltese protested outside a courthouse in the capital, Valletta, demanding he step down. ’As prime minister, I promised two years ago that justice would be done in the case of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia,’ Mr Muscat said, in his speech, adding: Today I am here to tell you that I kept my word.’

Mr Muscat noted that in addition to three people arrested soon after the bombing for carrying out the actual attack, now there is ’someone accused of being the principal person behind this killing’.

He was referring to Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech, who appeared in Valletta’s courthouse on Saturday on charges of complicity in the murder and of allegedly organising and financing the bombing. He entered pleas of innocence.

Meanwhile the call to probe the Bank of Valletta (BOV) has come after the European Central Bank (ECB) found its risk monitoring had ’severe shortcomings’ that could have allowed money laundering or other criminal activities.

Reuters reported about a confidential ECB review of the Bank of Valletta in which the Frankfurt-based regulator said BOV had failed for years to detect or address risks involving thousands of payments.

In July Moneyval, a European money-laundering watchdog, said the fight against dirty money did ’not appear to constitute a priority for the Maltese authorities’ and raised concerns about the police’s ability to combat financial crime.