Spain is different
Despite being poised to regulate egaming for some time now, Spain has yet to agree on a framework. Willem van Oort, panelist on the emerging markets panel at EGR Live, looks at the reasons for this.
A year ago, I conducted a small poll, asking if people would expect the Spanish government to regulate online gaming by the summer of 2010. Only 20% expected this to be the case. So what has happened in the meantime?
While the world and Europe is looking at Spain and its economic crisis, the Spanish legislators are not looking at national regulation, at least not in a way noticeable to the outside world. They are not looking at France, or even Italy, and trying to follow a painful but, let’s face it, relatively fast-track implementation of online gaming regulations.
The catharsis may lie with the regional authorities, which have announced that, since only they can regulate juegos de azar (games of chance), will permit online gaming from later this year. The Madrid region, the Castilla y Leon region are amongst the regions that have announced this.
At the Awedacity conference in Madrid in March, Mor Weizer of Playtech announced his company’s partnership with the Casino Gran de Madrid, the largest land-based casino in Spain. Other companies are looking to apply for such a regional licence, which would only allow local players to legally play on these websites.
Let’s not go into the practicality of this, since we could fill a conference with the thoughts alone.
However, Ed Birkin of Barclays Capital, who identified Spain as key territory to be in for first tier online operators, comments as follows: “Given there are no large incumbents to protect, unlike in France, regulation would probably be along the lines of that seen in Italy (whose primary purpose is to raise taxation) which will be beneficial for online operators.”
At EGR Live, I will be discussing Spain as part of the emerging markets session. Remember, not so long ago Spain was to be one of the first EU countries perceived to be poised to regulate in a sensible and quick manner.
Today it seems only regional powers can force the central government to make up its mind and keep the market sustainable for top-tier operators.
Willem van Oort will be appearing with Matt Jellicoe of OffsideBet and David Briggs of Orchid Sports on the ‘Spotlight on opportunities in emerging markets’ panel at EGR Live at 14:00 on 14 June, the first day of eGaming Review’s free-to-attend conference and exhibition in London.