According to reports from eGaming Review (EGR), there will be a slight delay in the opening of the Spain online gaming market. The setback is not related to previous issues regarding the payment of back-taxes.The new Spanish gaming market, which would have licensed sites use a “dot-es” suffix to show that the General Directorate for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ) in Spain has approved them, was expected to go live on Friday, June 1. After discussion with several of the potential licensees, however, the DGOJ has decided to push off the official opening until June 5, but will still issue the initial licenses as planned on Friday.
EGR quotes a source as saying that the DGOJ wants to double-check several items before it cracks the seal on the new gaming outlets for its citizens. The DGOJ wants to receive certain information from the new licensees to make sure the regulatory agency can appropriately have them on record. The five-day delay is to allow these companies to comply with the request and ensure that the new licensees go “live” at the same time.
“The DGOJ wants everyone to go online (simultaneously),” the unnamed source told EGR, “and wants to ensure that all operators are informed on whether their applications have been (approved) before the market opens.”
The expected June 5 start date could be pushed back for some companies, however. If an operator doesn’t present the appropriate documentation to the DGOJ, it would not be able to start exactly on the scheduled date, with delays mentioned by EGR as being up to a month. Although players may not be particularly pleased with the current delay, it is still an earlier date than was first proposed (June 30) for the Spanish gaming market to activate.
The Spanish gaming market was supposed to have opened up at the start of this year. That was before the Spanish government issued a requirement for any online gaming outlet to have paid back-taxes to the government before a license could be issued. The resulting influx of paperwork to the DGOJ, which claimed the back-tax issue was a “separate process” from licensing, forced the regulatory body to delay the start date.
The tax issues date back to a period between January 2009 and May 2011. If companies chose not to take care of their past debts or looked to litigate the issue, it was implied that they would not receive one of the prized Spanish gaming licenses. As such, several of the major players in the industry chose to pay rather than fight.888 Poker announced on Monday that it had reached a settlement of its tax issues with Spain's government to the tune of €8.7 million. This comes on the heels of bwin.Party paying out almost €33 million last week. Sportingbet settled for a €17.2 million bill, while Betfair and Ladbrokes paid undisclosed seven-figure amounts to take care of their back-taxes.
According to EGR, that leaves three major operators that haven’t paid their tax obligations and, as a result, they may be on the “outside looking in” for a Spanish license. William Hill and Paddy Power have neither announced a settlement nor whether they intend to pay their back-taxes, while PokerStars has stated it is in “continuing discussions” with tax authorities in Spain.
If you're from Spain, be sure to check out PocketFives' new Spain poker community. We'll keep you posted on the latest.
