Regulation in the Spanish market

[casinopowerguide]

I am a bit confused when it comes to the regulation in the Spanish market.

As I understand it as an affiliate I do not need a license to promote gaming products in Spain.

However I have heard that you can only promote sites that have a a license in Spain? I have also heard that fines can be of up to 1million Euros

That is fair enough, but how is this going to be applicable? If you have a .com site that is in Spanish but is not hosted in Spain how can they implement such laws?

Also if you have a .es site in Spanish but hosted somewhere else such as the UK, again what are the repercussions?

Are the rules for .es sites different for .com sites?

Thanks

[AFFcoins]

I am wondering this too. Bump for an answer

[alexpratt]

We will do a webinar on this soon but from what I understand if you have a .es site you must promote .es brands that have a license, if you have a .com site you can promote anyone....

If you want a more definitive answer I would post in the Gaming In Spain group on Linked In - They are very helpful

[casinopowerguide]

alexpratt - thank you! that is pretty much what I thought.

Does anyone know if there is a deadline? I promote bingo sites on my .es site, and I know some are trying to get a license, but would not want to fall foul of the law but promoting them after regulation has come into effect. Also, is there a list of gaming sites that have obtained the license?

I havent joined linkein but I will look into this now

Thanks again

[alexpratt]

I believe its Jan 1st or Jan 7th when it all comes into play and the announcement of who has a licence and who doesn't

A couple of other things that might help is a recent issue of our mag http://www.igbaffiliate.com/magazine...-data-analysis where we looked at Spain and a webinar we did a while ago on regulation there http://www.igamingbusiness.com/conte...ext-big-market

[casinopowerguide]

Thanks for that, it was very informative. However for affiliates it all seems to be a grey area. He says

"It is an important area to be defined...the actual active involvement in the operation of the gambling activities could be perceived as triggering the concept of being part of the business and be required to obtain an authorisation. It certainly would make no sense but it is something that will discussed heavily."

Has there been any more discussion on this point then? Is it worth keeping affiliate sites with a .es domain then?

[FictionNet]

Is it worth keeping affiliate sites with a .es domain then?

That's what I want to know. Does Google.es give .es domains a boost over .com (or whatever else) domains?

[Richard (OLBG)]

Does anyone know yet, please, which sites are getting licences? Sportsbook specifically

Cheers

[fkoerner]

It's not known yet who will get licences, but some bookmakers (e.g. Unibet, Betclic, Partybets, Gamebookers, Paddy Power, ...) have already announced that they are closing down in Spain.

Google doesn't give .es domains a boost over .com, but .es domains have the disadvantage that they can't be held anonymously.
I would advise it to anyone who doesn't have a whois-protected .com/.net/.org etc. to refrain from promoting non-licenced bookmakers next year!

cheers

[Louis - Income Access]

In my keyword searches for Spanish market, I have not noticed any particular advantage for .ES domains. I would say those who are just now looking into the market to pick .com extensions with appropriately Spanish-themed domains.

[casinobonusguy]

We have two .com in google.es for all Spanish keywords ,I would assume age etc will still play a factor in the rankings.

[casinopowerguide]

I don't think there is any advantage of having a .es to a .com really, it is the content that matters and where your links come from. I have a .es bingo site which has started to do nicely but will now to remove most of the properties on there until I know for sure who has got a license and who has not, so probably won't make much money on the Spanish market the next few months

[alexpratt]

Personally I believe there is a lot of advantages to a local tld in the long term..... Google is looking at local more and more and prioritising it in search.....It will also be interesting to see if gambling keywords are prioritised after legislation since google will want to comply with local legislation at least from a ppc perspective

[Renee]

It's not known yet who will get licences, but some bookmakers (e.g. Unibet, Betclic, Partybets, Gamebookers, Paddy Power, ...) have already announced that they are closing down in Spain.

I think you will find that this is because they want to make the fees retroactive. I.e the company has to go back and pay fees from players before the license was held. That's what I have heard anyway.
Total BS.