Online sports betting business Sportingbet has insisted that its licence application in its second largest market of Spain will be unaffected after a Madrid court re-ordered the shutdown of its Miapuesta.com and Miapuesta.es websites in the country.
The Mercantile Court number 10 of the district of Madrid yesterday rejected Sportingbet’s appeal against a December ruling that Spanish-facing websites must be shut down on the basis that “any offering of gaming or betting activity that has not been granted a prior administrative authorization is, indisputably, prohibited”.
Alderney-licensed Sportingbet, which generated 9.4% of its revenue from the territory in the last half year to 31 January, however insisted that a shutdown was far from imminent. A spokesman told Casino Choice: “First, the injunction is not yet in place. Secondly, as is common for such litigation, Sportingbet is working through a number of legal processes. It is therefore currently uncertain when the injunction will be ratified, if at all. The Miapuesta site will stay operational until both the injunction is in place and Sportingbet has exhausted the legal process.”
The Spanish betting and gaming operator bringing the action, Codere, said the legal implications of yesterday’s ruling that non Spanish-licensed websites were illegal combined with the application of a specific sanctions regime by both the Spanish State and the regions were “very significant.”
Codere said in a statement: “This ruling is part of a series of legal actions brought by CODERE against a series of online gaming and betting operators that have been offering their activities from tax havens, impervious to the Spanish Tax authorities, without licenses, without player protection and without paying taxes in Spain, without generating employment and harming those entities, which operate or foresee to start operating lawfully in Spain with their illegal competition.” Codere also said in its statement yesterday that it valued the aggregate taxes that have not been paid to the Spanish Tax Authority by offshore operators at “in excess hundreds of millions of Euros.”
Sportingbet also this morning disputed Codere’s implication that it had been avoiding its tax obligations in Spain. The spokesman said: “Further, Sportingbet has paid its taxes in Spain. The Regulator has provided us with letters which confirm that he sees no impediment to the grant of our licences. Therefore, the Regulator is also of the opinion that Sportingbet has paid all of its Spanish taxes. So, Codere’s statement is wrong on this count, and others. This piece of litigation will not affect our licence application.”
The London-listed sports betting and in-play specialist declared in its recent half-year statement that having to pay taxes of £7.9m in its second and third largest markets of Spain and Greece, ahead of regulation there, had impaired the performance of its Europe and Emerging Markets division in the six months to 31 January 2012.
Codere, which has further legal actions pending against other operators, lost a legal action back in January against PokerStars, a Barcelona court ruling that the poker room could not be penalised for failing to apply for licences that didn’t exist at the time. The operator is clearly hoping that yesterday’s ruling that carrying out an activity that is “indisputably prohibited” and, hence, “unfair competition vis-à-vis those operators that are lawfully authorized in Spain”, has a set a precedent that will work in its favour in upcoming cases.
The Spanish regulator has set a deadline of 31 March for issuing licences to the first wave of applicants, which includes Sportingbet, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Party Poker and bwin owner bwin.party digital entertainment, 888 and Paddy Power.
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