Bet365 has become the latest operator to receive a licence to offer live dealer roulette games in the regulated Spanish online gambling market.
The Stoke-headquartered operator is the fourth to be granted a permit for live streamed roulette games by national igaming regulator the Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ), following 888, Interwetten and Luckia Games.
Casino Gran Madrid also offers a Playtech-powered service, operated under a licence granted by the automonous region of Madrid back in May 2011, which also allows it to offer online slots – banned in the rest of Spain – to local residents.
Bet365, which entered the recently regulated dot.es market in June 2012, has established itself as one of the top two operators for online sports betting in Spain, alongside bwin. It however renounced its online bingo licence in April, based on poor prospects for the market.
The Spanish regulator is currently readying regulations for exchange betting and online slots, in a move clearly aimed at recovering a market that had already shown signs of plateauing by the first quarter of 2013, less than 12 months after opening.
Spain’s regulator is also understood to be keen on pooling online poker liquidity with other ring-fenced national player pools in Italy and France. The performances of all three markets have been impacted by a combination of high tax rates and a more restricted range of games and prizes than those available on dot.com sites. Denmark’s regulator avoided the problem by allowing its poker licensees to tap into their dot.com liquidities.
Article written by Katy Stirland
