About a month ago, Spain issued its first online gambling license and is following the footsteps of other European countries such as France, Italy and Estonia. Spain’s Congress opted towards the regulated online gambling market within its own borders and the first operator to be granted such a license is the Casino Gran Madrid.
The Casino Gran Madrid website will only be available for Madrid residents and is allowed to offer a range of online gaming products including poker, blackjack, roulette and slots in agreement with the Spanish online gambling licence. The software itself will be powered by Playtech, widely known as the software provider for the iPoker Network, that includes skins such as Titan Poker, William Hill Poker, Poker770 and several other dozen skins.
The proposed national online gambling law has not come into effect yet, thus the Casino Gran Madrid has received the license a few months in advance and may gain a hold in the market before all other official licenses are issued on a national level.
Jorge Casanova, the director of information systems, was proud to announce the following:
“Casino Gran Madrid has always been committed to innovation and this time we could not do less. Casino Gran Madrid will continue to operate under one brand because our aim is to leverage synergies for our customers, and remain true to our core values that have guided our performance — professionalism, rigor, experience, transparency, security — and with a software certified by official laboratories.”
The enthusiasm for this project was obviously confirmed by Playtech’s CEO Mor Weizer as well:
“We are delighted to have secured this agreement with one of Europe’s largest and most respected land based operators. We expect this to be a significantly value accretive relationship, exemplifying our strategy to increase the number of regulated markets in which we operate.”
10% of the gross gaming revenue will be taken as taxes for the government, which is still considerably low when you compare it with the usual tax rate at France, for example. It will be interesting to see the exact wording of the proposed national online gambling law and how long it will take to come into effect. As soon as we know more about the specific release time and restrictions to gain the license, we will follow up on this story and keep you up to date. The current estimated goal is the end of summer 2011, but alas Spain was never known to get things done on schedule.
There will also be a webinar concerning this topic as well and you can join for free: iGaming in Spain - Europe's Next Big Market - All you need is a stable internet connection and a headset, it will take place Thursday July 14th at 17:00 Central European Time = 16:00 British Time.
The only question that is currently unanswered in the dark: Who will be next? Sidebets anyone?
The Casino Gran Madrid website will only be available for Madrid residents and is allowed to offer a range of online gaming products including poker, blackjack, roulette and slots in agreement with the Spanish online gambling licence. The software itself will be powered by Playtech, widely known as the software provider for the iPoker Network, that includes skins such as Titan Poker, William Hill Poker, Poker770 and several other dozen skins.
The proposed national online gambling law has not come into effect yet, thus the Casino Gran Madrid has received the license a few months in advance and may gain a hold in the market before all other official licenses are issued on a national level.
Jorge Casanova, the director of information systems, was proud to announce the following:
“Casino Gran Madrid has always been committed to innovation and this time we could not do less. Casino Gran Madrid will continue to operate under one brand because our aim is to leverage synergies for our customers, and remain true to our core values that have guided our performance — professionalism, rigor, experience, transparency, security — and with a software certified by official laboratories.”
The enthusiasm for this project was obviously confirmed by Playtech’s CEO Mor Weizer as well:
“We are delighted to have secured this agreement with one of Europe’s largest and most respected land based operators. We expect this to be a significantly value accretive relationship, exemplifying our strategy to increase the number of regulated markets in which we operate.”
10% of the gross gaming revenue will be taken as taxes for the government, which is still considerably low when you compare it with the usual tax rate at France, for example. It will be interesting to see the exact wording of the proposed national online gambling law and how long it will take to come into effect. As soon as we know more about the specific release time and restrictions to gain the license, we will follow up on this story and keep you up to date. The current estimated goal is the end of summer 2011, but alas Spain was never known to get things done on schedule.
There will also be a webinar concerning this topic as well and you can join for free: iGaming in Spain - Europe's Next Big Market - All you need is a stable internet connection and a headset, it will take place Thursday July 14th at 17:00 Central European Time = 16:00 British Time.
The only question that is currently unanswered in the dark: Who will be next? Sidebets anyone?