Home / Poker News May 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – bwin.party Looking to Secure Spanish License
The Poker Grapevine – bwin.party Looking to Secure Spanish License
Posted by: Randy Williams - Tue, 2012-05-22 07:50
Securing a Spanish operating license is apparently quite a big deal for some operators out there. bwin.party have just agreed to give in to a demand of the Spanish authorities to pay back-taxes in order to be able to apply for a Spanish license. The new, regulated Spanish online poker market will open next month, and bwin.party are obviously looking to be part of the legal online poker environment there. An announcement was made on Monday, according to which, bwin.party are ready to pay €33.5 million in back-taxes to the Spanish tax authorities to settle on account of two laws that were previously not applied. The sum was determined by bwin.party experts, who completed a tax self-assessment for the online gambling giant, coming up with a figure of €25.6 million, to which they also added €8 million in penalties and interest.
About 60 online poker operators are said to have applied for Spanish licenses and many of them owe back taxes, which the Spanish government is certainly aiming to collect before the said companies are even considered for a license.
According to a statement released by
bwin.party, the company is now safe in the knowledge that it has indeed fulfilled all requirements and that it will indeed be granted a coveted share of the regulated Spanish market.
Several high-profile operators like
Ladbrokes, William Hill,
888 and PokerStars are said to have applied for licenses too. Many of these entities face similar back-tax issues.
In other news: PokerStars’ 2012 Spring Championship of Online Poker was definitely a resounding success, its status cemented by the fact that event after event effortlessly doubled its initial guarantee. Things went so well in fact that the 2012 SCOOP has successfully clinched the title of ‘richest online poker series ever’. It turns out that the various events of the SCOOP paid out a total of more than $65 million, blowing clear past the previous record of $64.2 million set in 2010.
