Regulation Round-Up 06 December 2011
The biggest regulatory news from the egaming industry in the last seven days (30 November to 6 December 2011)
Word exclusive: Facebook in exploratory talks to open real-money gambling in the UK
Social network sketches out plans to hand out eight licences, two per vertical, to first operators in line as US$100bn valued platform positions itself to take larger slice of online gambling in regulated markets.
The world ‘s largest social network is in early stage discussions with several operators to open its platform to real-money online gambling in the UK, eGaming Review can exclusively reveal.
The launch timeframe is unclear, however Facebook is known to have been heavily promoting its virtual credits to UK operators in the last few months as well as investigating ways in which this can eventually be transformed into a real money model.
Facebook “ that is said to be is considering raising US$10bn in an initial public offering that would value it at more than $100bn “ is known to have sketched out a plan to offer an initial eight ‘licences’ to eight individual operators, two from each of the four verticals, with the social network being used as a platform for the firms to integrate their apps. Facebook is rumoured to have recently hired a significant number of personnel to work launching real-money play in the UK.
DGA makes last minute rule change
Danish Gambling Authority expects late amendments to gambling regulations to be approved by December 29 deadline.
The Danish Gambling Authority (DGA) has made last-minute changes to the country’s egaming legislation to allow operators based outside Denmark, and not regulated by jurisdictions with which it has signed a memorandum of understanding, to be granted a licence.
Operators licensed outside of Alderney and the Isle of Man will be eligible to receive a Danish licence, providing “the licence holder can give the DGA access to perform an adequate control of the gambling system by the means of remote access or similar”, its rules state.
Iowa regulators release poker report
Examination of potential online poker framework follows discussions with egaming operators.
The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission has published the results of its study into the impact of regulated online poker in the Hawkeye State.
It contains details of consultations with potential intrastate poker operators, as well as compliance testing facilities including BMM Testlabs and GLI.
The two potential operators named are US Digital Gaming and SciPlay, the latter having already launched a freeplay poker offering in another US state, California.