Spain Issues First Online Gaming Licence

Spain has now joined other European countries such as France, Italy and Estonia, and issued its first online gambling license.
A few weeks ago, Spain’s Congress paved the way for a regulated online gambling market within its own borders and now it has been reported that the first operator to be granted such a licence is the Casino Gran Madrid.
The new website will now undergo a period of testing which, when deemed satisfactory, will then be allowed to offer a range of online gaming products including poker, blackjack, roulette and slots.
The Casino Gran Madrid’s website will also
be only available for Madrid residents and be powered by Playtech, which currently maintains the iPoker Network, where such sites as Titan Poker, Betfred Poker, William Hill Poker and Bet365 Poker are currently located.
Rather surprisingly, the Casino Gran Madrid received the license a few months in advance of a proposed national online gambling law, thus allowing it to gain a hold in the market before licenses are issued on a national level.
Following the announcement, director of information systems Jorge Casanova said:
“Casino Gran Madrid has always been committed to innovation and this time we could not do less. Casino Gran Madrid will continue to operate under one brand because our aim is to leverage synergies for our customers, and remain true to our core values that have guided our performance — professionalism, rigor, experience, transparency, security — and with a software certified by official laboratories.”
Playtech’s CEO Mor Weizer echoed Casino Gran Madrid’s enthusiasm for the project and stated:
“We are delighted to have secured this agreement with one of Europe’s largest and most respected land based operators. We expect this to be a significantly value accretive relationship, exemplifying our strategy to increase the number of regulated markets in which we operate.”
All being well, the new website should be up and running later this summer, with 10% of its gross gaming revenue then being channeled to the government as taxes.