Spanish Regulators Try to Set Terms to Open Online Casino Market
Foreign online casino operators are lining up to move quickly when Spain acts to allow access to its online gambling market. But regulators are struggling to find a nationally workable structure for gaming rules and licensing, and online casinos may still have a wait in front of them.Despite the confidence shown by William Hill, bwin, and iGaming Business in preparing to enter the Spanish Internet gambling market, lottery operators have been unable to devise a system of national regulation.
Such confusion existed in the meetings between Spanish regional regulators and the Ministry of the Interior that insiders have become pessimistic about any quick fix to bring access to the Spanish gambling scene.
Eduardo Antoja, president of a Spanish gaming manufacturing company, told GamblingCompliance that "I don’t now see regulation in Spain in the next three years.”
Spain seems to be a microcosm of the troubles that affect the European Commission regarding trade in online casino services. Just as member nations in the EC are enacting laws and regulations adverse to Commission treaties, Spanish area such as Madrid and the Basque Country are implementing their own individual regulations.
Gaming industry insiders said the intricate and unique gaming situations in each Spanish province are harbingers of what online casino operators must prepare to deal with in the future, and may very well be a model for the US, with potentially fifty diverging sets of rules for online gambling.
