Labour’s trusted pollster Vince Marmara has been handed another €53,000 in direct orders by the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA), according to the latest entries published in the Government Gazette.
The new payments include a €46,500 contract awarded to Marmara’s company, Sagalytics Ltd, for an unspecified “feasibility study”, and a further €7,000 for “statistical analyses related to employment in the gaming industry”.
The awards come as questions continue to mount over the long-standing financial relationship between the gaming regulator and the Labour-aligned pollster.
The MGA is chaired by Ryan Pace, a young lawyer who previously assisted Prime Minister Robert Abela at his private legal office and is currently on 12 simultaneous government retainers.
Marmara, a full-time senior lecturer at the University of Malta, has been on the MGA’s payroll since 2014. Over the past decade, he has received hundreds of thousands of euro through direct orders and monthly retainers, despite public procurement rules requiring competitive tendering for such services.
The Shift is informed that Marmara’s first 12-month contract with the MGA dates back to October 2014, when it was signed with disgraced former CEO Joseph Cuschieri still at the helm. Since then, the arrangement has reportedly been renewed multiple times via direct orders.
At the same time, Marmara’s political polling activity has drawn increasing scrutiny. He built his public profile through regular surveys published in the General Workers’ Union newspaper it-Torċa, aligned with the Labour Party. While such monthly polls are costly to conduct, Marmara has never disclosed who finances them.
In 2024, ahead of the European Parliament elections, Marmara’s projections significantly overstated Labour’s expected performance. The final result differed by around 10 percentage points, reportedly triggering anger among gamblers who had placed bets based on his predictions.
More recently, Marmara shifted the publication of his surveys to social media. However, his last poll was released in November 2025, and speculation is rife that more recent surveys have not been made public amid what sources describe as a negative trend for the Labour administration.
The latest Government Gazette also shows that the MGA issued two additional direct orders to Infinite Fusion Technologies, owned by Liam Ferriggi – a property developer and Marmara’s business partner in Smart Infrastructure Ltd -raising further questions about overlapping commercial interests.
Marmara’s name continues to feature regularly on government direct order lists.
Beyond the MGA, he has provided services to various ministries and state entities, including the Office of the President for an annual state of the nation conference.