UK Authorities are said to be considering a second tier licensing arrangement for internet gambling operators based outside the UK.
According to a report in the Guardian, leaks from within the UK Department for Culture, Media, and Sport indicate that offshore operators wanting to continue pushing their product in the UK market may soon need a license and associated fee payments to do so. A widely recognized problem with the UK's current online gambling regulatory regime is that it subjects locally based and licensed operators to higher license costs than those incurred by offshore competitors.
Operators licensed in Gibraltar and other white status license jurisdictions pay less gaming tax and yet have the same advertising rights as UK licensed operators. This uneven playing field is largely the reason for the likes of William Hill moving its online operations to Gibraltar recently.
While exact details of the proposed arrangements are still to be thrashed out, in broad terms they would required all offshore but UK facing operators to gain a license (and pay a fee) to be allowed to advertise their product in the UK. There would also be some requirement to share information with the UK Gambling Commission in relation to unusual betting activity.
The key driver of this arrangement is, as Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe puts it, "getting a fairer deal for UK operators".
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