This story is sponsored by Betfair
Betfair has been licensed in Spain for online sports betting, blackjack and roulette, it confirmed today.
The operator has however yet to apply for an online poker licence for Betfair.es, on 23 May stating its intention to do so “shortly thereafter” the issue of its initial licences, suggesting it is unlikely to be one of the two unnamed rooms current provider Ongame said on Tuesday would be “going public” on joining its new Spanish network “in the upcoming weeks”. A Betfair spokesman declined to confirm to Casino Choice that it would be powered by Ongame in Spain once licensed.
PAF and Goalwin were announced as the founding members of Ongame’s network within the segregated dot.es player pool. Rival Microgaming today confirmed that Ladbrokes, CIRSA, Betway, Stan James and Interwetten would be joining its Prima Networks Spain platform. William Hill and bet365′s UK poker provider Playtech has yet to make a formal announcement on its partners in the market. GTECH G2 has announced it will continue to power Sportingbet and its Paradise Poker brand brand in Spain, as well as Poker Heaven and six new Spanish rooms.
Betfair’s former CEO David Yu admitted last year he was “concerned” about the impact on the network of the merger between Ongame’s then owner bwin and PartyGaming, after Betfair Poker had moved to Ongame from its own proprietary sofware the previous summer. The new company forged from the bwin-Party merger, bwin.party digital entertainment, subsequently sold Ongame to Nevada-licensed gaming supplier Shuffle Master for an intial €19.5m in March of this year and recently stated it remains on track to complete the migration of bwin’s poker properties onto the PartyPoker platform by the end of 2012. bwin.party-owned brands account for at least half of Ongame’s liquidity in its open dot.com and ring-fenced networks in France and Italy.
Betfair.es has yet to launch in the new Spanish regulated market, which went live on Tuesday morning. The operator has yet to receive a decision on Codere’s action against it in Spain, a spokesman confirmed to Casino Choice today. Sportingbet, forced to close down its Spanish business in late March following a successful action by Codere, relaunched Miapuesta.es on Tuesday after the issue of its licence negated part of the injunction.
The Spanish regulator confirmed the issue of 91 general licences and 186 unique licences to 53 companies, with new entrants outnumbering established online gaming operators by 27 to 26. Most licences - 31 - were issued for roulette, followed by 28 for blackjack, 27 for online poker, 26 for bingo and 17 for sports betting.
Despite the Spanish regulator declaring the day before the first licences were issued on 1 June that existing operators would not be allowed to transfer player funds and loyalty points from dot.com to dot.es platforms once the market went live, the majority of licensees are now taking advantage of an informal transition period, first reported by Casino Choice, to migrate existing players across. PokerStars, whose head of corporate comms Eric Hollreiser reassured players over the weekend that their funds would be safely transferred, is understood to have already completed the migration. The world’s largest poker room has reportedly signed up tennis star Rafael Nadal as brand ambassdor to raise its profile in the freshly regulated market.
