Spanish Online Poker Licenses Awarded

by Mario Alfonsi  |  Published on Jun 2, 2012  |  Updated on Jun 2, 2012

Spain said that they’d start regulating online poker in the month of June, and they wasted no time in getting the first round of licenses out to operators. By the end of the day on June 1, At least four major online poker operators had confirmed that they had received licenses to operate online poker sites specifically for the Spanish market.The biggest name in the group is undoubtedly PokerStars. The dominant poker room in the current worldwide market wasn’t initially among the reported companies getting a license, but they confirmed that they’d be a part of the Spanish online poker scene later in the day.“We are happy to confirm that PokerStars was today granted a license to operate in Spain,” the company said in a statement. “We plan to launch www.PokerStars.es on June 5^th. For now, Spanish players can continue to compete on www.PokerStars.com as normal and don’t need to take any action.”But PokerStars was far from the only winner on Friday. Another major player that received a license was bwin.party. The parent company of Party Poker will likely try to launch a variety of gambling products in Spain. Other companies that received licenses included 888 Holdings and Sportingbet, which was working on having previous injunctions against them from the Spanish government lifted before launching their new Spanish site.For 888, Sportingbet and bwin.party, the licenses were awarded following their agreements with the Spanish government to pay back taxes on their last four years of operations in Spain. Each company did an self-assessment of how many customers and how much revenue they had from Spain, and then paid the same taxes they would have paid under the new regulations.On the other hand, PokerStars has not yet reported making such an assessment or any payment. It is unclear whether they will be required to make such a payment as a condition of receiving their operating license, or if some other arrangement was made between the site and the Spanish government.