Regulation round-up 11 September 2012
The biggest regulatory news from the egaming industry in the last seven days (5 September to 11 September 2012).
Exclusive: Belgium anticipates issuing “up to 10″ sports betting licences
Full complement of 34 land-based licences awarded – bwin.party begins new legal challenge.
The Belgian Gaming Commission does not expect to hand out more than 10 online sports betting licences, after issuing the last of the land-based equivalents last week.
German-facing operator Tipico – which is also one of 12 companies to have been awarded a licence in Schleswig-Holstein – was among the final recipients of an F1 land-based sports licence, while Belgian-based Pas.co BVBA was also successful with its application.
One blacklisted operator, bwin.party (through its bwin brand), has brought a new legal action against Belgian authorities after seeing a previous complaint rejected by a Brussels court with the judge describing it as having “no legal merit”.
Danish casino growth offsets online betting decline
Danish regulatory authority SKAT has published second-quarter numbers for the country’s fledgling egaming market, revealing a significant quarter-on-quarter revenue increase from the casino vertical.
Gross gaming revenue from the country’s online casinos rose 27% compared to the first quarter under the regulated regime, coming in at DKK235m (£25.2m), however online betting GGR dropped 7% to DKK265m. Overall, GGR from the online gambling sector rose 6% quarter-on-quarter.
SKAT anticipates the dot.dk licensees, the first of which received approval last December and began operating on 1 January, to generate DKK1.87bn across the first year of operation, with an approximate 65% to 35% split between sports betting and online casino.
Seven days in regulation:
Betfair lodges formal complaint in Cyprus
Exchange operator Betfair has lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission concerning recently passed gambling legislation in Cyprus.
Under current legislation in the EU member state, adopted on 6 July, betting exchanges in their current form could be prohibited, with other sports betting products remaining unaffected.
The UK operator attracts around 4% of its group revenues (£9m) from the island and has previously slammed the new legislation as containing “serious flaws” and being “inconsistent with European Union law” on several counts
ARJEL repeals licences of four operators
French regulatory authority ARJEL has repealed the licences of four operators as the number of companies within the country’s online gambling market continues to shrink.
Among those to surrender their licences is TitanPoker.fr owner The Nation Traffic, with the operator confirming plans to exit the market in July after requesting the repeal of its dot.fr sports betting licence in December last year.
PokerXtrem has also relinquished its licence, having no need for it after completing its merger with MyPok in a deal which will see combined group FullPok join the soon-to-launch Partouche Poker network in the EU country.
Second Hills domain added to Belgian blacklist
The Belgian Gaming Commission (BGC) has added 10 more domains to its online gambling blacklist, including a second domain held by London-listed operator William Hill.
Hills’ primary dot.com domain was blacklisted in May along with the likes of Betfair and bwin.party, and the www2.williamhill.com domain has now also been added to the list.
The total number of sites currently on the Belgian blacklist is 45, just under halfway towards the total of 100 which the BGC said it anticipated to reach before the end of the year.
Bally receives Alderney gaming licence
US-facing service provider Bally Technologies has received a core service associate certificate from the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC).
The company applied for the licence in May, three months after it acquired Chiligaming’s B2B iGaming platform. Chili previously held an operating licence in the jurisdiction but cancelled it after merging its non-French B2C operations with Curaçao-licensed Poker770 in March.
Bally has also filed an application in Gibraltar and is believed to be clearing a path for deals to supply its online gaming content to operators across Europe.
WMS and Stratosphere receive Nevada GCB recommendation
WMS Gaming and the owner of Las Vegas’ Stratosphere Casino are to become the latest companies to receive online poker licences in Nevada this month after both received recommendations by the Gaming Control Board (GCB).
The Nevada Gaming Commission will now decide whether to award the licences at its next meeting on 20 September.
American Casino & Entertainment Properties (ACEP), the holding company for Stratosphere, applied for operator and service provider licences in February but has since requested to withdraw its service provider application.
32Red gears up for Italy launch
AIM-listed operator 32Red remains on course to launch its Italian-facing offering in the fourth quarter of this year, the company confirmed in its interim results for the six months ended 30 June.
After obtaining a licence in the regulated dot.it market in March, the operator plans to launch casino, poker and bingo offerings, with the former going live before the end of this year.
In June, Italian regulator AAMS opened up the licensing process for online bingo, with December earmarked as the likely launch date, however 32Red suggests this could happen earlier. Online cash poker and casino were both legalised in Italy in February last year.
Nevada sets out celebrity endorsement rules
Amendments to Nevada’s gaming regulations will permit online poker operators to recruit celebrity endorsers, while transfers between players will be banned.
The new rules written by the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) also specify individual classes of service providers to include those offering services such as geolocation, player identification and payment processing.
With operators likely to recruit celebrities and poker professionals in the new Nevada market, the NGC has specified that endorsers may not play under secondary accounts while receiving sponsored benefits, so as to ensure that they are clearly identifiable.