Licensed remote gambling for Spain

Spanish authorities have been working on internet gambling regulations for some time now and after a period of inevitable to-ing and fro-ing new laws have now been passed by the Spanish Congress.

The laws will become effective upon publication in the State Official Bulletin (Boletín Oficial del Estado), expected this week and within a year we should see fully licensed online gambling providers within Spain.

Operators and software developers have obviously been keeping an eye on developments in Spain, and why wouldn’t they they…it’s one of the biggest online gambling markets in Europe.

Spanish tailored live casino products have been popping up thick and fast over the last few months with a view to hitting the ground running in the soon- to-be-opened market. Evolution Gaming introduced live dealer blackjack en Español complete with fluent Spanish dealers late in 2010. Just last month EntwineTech announced the launch of their Spanish friendly live games.

Key provisions contained in the new laws include the following:

• the establishment of new regulatory bodies, the Council for Gaming Policy and a National Gaming Commission;
• licensing and taxation of online gambling operators on a regional rather than national level;
• exclusion of bingo and in-play sports betting from products allowed to be offered;
• the requirement to host services on a .es domain to aid supervision and control;
• penalties of up to EUR 50 million for “very serious infringements”, among them, offering games without license;
• a 12 month grace period (1 January 2011 to 1 Jan 2012) for operators to comply with sponsorship/advertising rules.  That is, sponsorship/advertising agreements currently in place in the absence a license will not constitute an infringement until Jan 2012.

The European Commission will no doubt review the law for compliance with their single market principle so there is still a possibility that lawmakers will have to go back to the drawing board if they (the laws) are viewed as overly protectionist without a public interest justification.

The RGA’s Clive Hawkswood has already noted that while a step in the right direction, the new law “goes against the European Union principles as it restricts operators from offering their products across the EU if they don’t obtain a Spanish license.”

Related pages:

Live casinos for players from Spain