This story is sponsored by Party Poker
The Spanish regulator has reiterated that operators will not be able to transfer Spanish player accounts and balances from dot.com to dot.es platforms when the regulated market goes live.
The last minute “clarification” published by the Spanish regulator on its website yesterday, hours before the first licences are due to be issued today, states that operators will not be able to transfer player accounts, funds or loyalty points when they from move from dot.com to dot.es platforms at 9am on Tuesday.
However, Casino Choice understands that the regulator has informally told operators that this requirement won’t likely be enforced until 15 June, effectively giving operators a ten-day period of grace during which to transfer player data across. Player accounts not migrated by this time will have to be refunded, and those players will need to re-register and deposit on the dot.es sites.
Affiliates will also after this time lose the right to be tagged to existing players, as the Spanish regulator’s move to sever all “pre-existing rights, obligations or eventual accounts linked under dot.com” also extends to all entities with which the operator has a commercial or corporate relationship.
The 11th hour move is clearly aimed at levelling the playing field between all entrants to the new regulated market. Sportingbet, forced to turn off its Spanish business on 27 March following a successful action by local land-based incumbent Codere, has said it intends upon expected receipt of its licence today to apply immediately to the Commercial Court No 10 in Madrid to cancel the current injunction over its Spanish-facing business.
Yesterday’s unexpected move by the Spanish regulator follows a similarly unforeseen last minute tax grab from online operators under retroactively applied 1966 and 1977 land-based gaming laws. 888 on Monday became the last of the London-listed operators with a significant Spanish-facing business to settle and remove any potential impediment to the issue of its licence, meaning Spanish authorities’ last-minute tax grab has netted it €68.9m from London-listed operators alone, after bwin.party, Sportingbet and Betfair all paid up.
PokerStars and bet365 are also understood to have paid large settlements to clear away any potential impediment to the issue of their licences, but as privately owned companies, neither is under any obligation to disclose their liability.
The country’s regulator will today announce the issue of the country’s first online gaming licences covering the offer of sports betting and casino table games, including poker. Betting exchanges, in-play, slots and bingo were not however included in the first round of licensing.
