Regulatory Developments
The global supply of betting and gaming services remains subject to complex regulatory issues, including various trade barriers, and a lack of consistency in jurisdictions’ determination of where an online gambling transaction takes place. The Group continues to provide its services only from jurisdictions where it is licensed and regulated, and therefore the legal position in its place of supply (and where its regulator and applicable local laws deem the gambling transaction to take place) is explicitly legal.
In order to provide its worldwide gambling service, the Group currently maintains licences in the UK, Alderney, Italy, Northern Cyprus, Antigua and Australia.
Major issues of note in the last 12 months include:
- an ongoing lack of appetite amongst operators to elect to obtain a licence in the UK, motivated principally by the punitive tax rate
- greater European Commission pressure on EU Member States to justify their national gambling regimes in light of the free trade requirements of EU law
- an apparent move towards greater liberalisation in a number of EU jurisdictions, including France, Spain and Italy
- passage of the prohibitive Interstate Gambling Treaty in Germany
- a landmark High Court decision in Australia relating to the interstate supply of gambling services
- the recent court order authorising the seizure of 141 gambling related domain names in the Commonwealth of Kentucky