Analysis: Spain - Open for business
With a new government elected in Spain just days after the passage of the country's egaming legislation, Tom Victor asks what lies ahead for Europe's newest regulated market?
On 18 November, six months after the country’s gaming proposals were first passed into law, the Spanish market opened for licence applications.
Two days later, the centre-right Popular Party was elected into power in the EU member state, supplanting the previous socialist government.
But questions remain as to whether or not the new regime will provide an early stumbling block for egaming legislation, or if the opening of the process two days earlier has come just in time.
Eduardo Morales-Hermo, a Madrid-based economist and gaming consultant, believes potential problems could arise for those operators that have left it late to apply for a licence.
While no communication has been made on a formal basis, Morales-Hermo says information has been given to operators that may be impacted by the change in the country’s governance.
He explains: “The only relevant issue might be that the regulator intends to finalise the first set of licensees by 19 December, providing their applications have been presented and completed during the first half of the application opening period. If that happens, those who present their applications towards the end of the opening period might not be awarded a licence until January 2012, due to the workload and the necessary verification processes.
“It looks like that all those that complied and applied before 2 December will be able to have licenses, and the rest that apply by 14 December, will have a two to three week delay,” he adds Morales-Hermo.
Santiago Asensi, lawyer with Madrid firm Asensi Abogados, agrees suggesting: “It’s difficult to think that the Popular Party will adopt any measures straight away considering the need to tackle unemployment and other important issues first.”
Asensi admits however that: “We could reach the point where the new government makes 100 measures about a variety of aspects and one of those covers gambling.”
Like Morales-Hermo he does not believe the change of government will have too severe an impact on the legislation now that it has been put into action, despite concerns from some quarters that the fragile nature of the tenure of the previous government could be seen to discredit the measures they passed in 2011.
Still, he notes that: “The Popular Party has already said publicly in a conference that they’re not happy with the way things are being performed and it was too fast a process.
“The government has said they are unhappy with the public tender process and I think they will make changes such as removing the requirement to wait for 18 months to apply again after the first set of licences is issued “ I see them as likely to open it back up to simply once an operator has met requirements. Also I understand they believe 25% GGR tax is too high and they will try to deal with that,” adds Asensi.
The discovery of flaws, Asensi argues, is understandable, and indeed something which any ruling party would have most likely discovered, regardless of whether it was the previous government, the Popular Party, or another ruling party.
“This is something the socialist party would have probably executed eventually. It’s a work in progress. Now we have a complete set of regulations the government will gain experience and keep changing as is necessary,” he explains.
The full version of this article appears in the upcoming print version of eGaming Review. To subscribe, click here.