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Land-based casinos: the license to operate
The situation with gambling in the UK has adjusted in accordance with the 2014 scenario. The Gambling Law was introduced in the British Parliament on May 9 and approved five days later. According to the new regulations, all entrepreneurs wishing to operate in the British Isles as of October 1, 2014, must have a special license.
All companies and operators wishing to offer their services to residents in the British Isles must be licensed by the UK Gambling Commission.
In a note sent to entrepreneurs, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) warned all international gambling operators that they had a deadline to acquire their license in the UK.
The UKGC stated that the end date for the license to be acquired fell on September, 16; all those operators who did not have the necessary papers until the due date were not allowed to operate legally in the UK. The date of re-licensing is yet to be declared.
The clamour around online poker
The tightening of the British Gambling Law serves, primarily, for regulation and more close monitoring of the online casino industry. Inability or failure to obtain the license lead to lawful prohibitions; unlicensed gambling websites and companies in the United Kingdom are prohibited from function and their operation is automatically qualified as illegal.
All gambling rooms with “.com” domains are limited in number to cover players who make up 10% of the world’s poker revenue. This leaves very few places operating at full power and only several websites are functional enough to sustain online gamblers. Access to casino game rooms in foreign countries, such as Spain, Italy or France, is also limited.
Another reason why the UKGC wanted to introduce this Gambling Law is profits. Basically, the British government wants to control the whole of the casino industry on the islands to ensure that foreign companies pay a fee when they earn income from players living in the United Kingdom.
Last but not least, the Law also requires operators to pay a tax, around 15% of all profits earned from the UK online poker players.
The first online gaming provider to get their license was Realistic Games. In February 2014, the company secured the B2B license for gambling in the “kingdom of casinos”, Gibraltar, and now the company supplies content to several operators: Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, bet365, BetVictor and William Hill. Seeing how worrisome the process of getting the license could become most clients of Realistic Games were glad they had one less issue to worry about.
For the whole of the Internet casino gambling, several websites have long become too valuable a thing to ignore the lawful limitations. That is why most online casino frequenters try to find their safe harbours and keep an eye on the situation with the British Gambling Law.
The licensing represented an important step for the entire UK gambling community. Now, when the Betting Commission have lead operators through the application process and the most demanding tests, UK gamblers can become customers of exclusively the most reliable of them. Good luck in your games!
