888/Evolution win the live dealer race for Spain

In 2011 Spain enacted it’s remote gambling law and their General Directorate of Gambling started awarding licenses shortly afterward. Since then the race has been on to deliver live dealer games compliant with the new regulations.

A key part of that compliance is the requirement that the games take place in a local bricks and mortar casino. So Evolution Gaming,  Playtech or any other developer wanting to peddle their games to operators with licensed ‘dot.es’ domains had to partner up with a local casino to do so.

Playtech announced their early intentions to do this and followed up with the news last month that they had partnered with the Casino Gran Madrid, suggesting the launch of their Spanish live dealer product with one of their customers was imminent.

Evolution Gaming had been a little quiet on the whole Spain thing.  Aside from the fact that a bunch of their licencees were front and centre getting the nod from authorities to launch their .es online casinos (in some cases, including paying back taxes on historical ‘unlicensed’ revenues from Spanish players) they weren’t making too much noise on the matter. This changed last week when they issued a press release saying that their Spanish live games were up and running at 888!

El primer casino online con crupiers reales en vivo!

This is the tag line that greets you at the live dealer landing page at 888casino.es. It translates to: The first online casino with real live dealers!  To be accurate it should probably include something about ‘licensed’ and ‘for Spanish players’ but I guess then it becomes more of a news report than a tag line. This is indeed the first live dealer product online sanctioned by the government of Spain and available to players from Spain.

Presently live roulette (live Ruleta) is the only game offered. It is live streamed from Casino Rincon de Pepe in Murcia, about 250 miles south-east of where Playtech are setting up shop near Madrid.

Is it fun to play? Can’t say…it’s only available to Spanish players so any feedback welcomed!

Related pages from Livedealer.org:

• Casino online con crupiers reales en vivo