When a few weeks prior to issuing online gambling licenses the Spanish authority asked for four years’ back taxes the applicant operators paid up the millions of euros without batting an eyelid. Bwin.party paid €33 million while the amount for PokerStars would have been much larger. The earlier understanding was that the back taxes would be levied from June 2011.

Another such nasty last minute surprise was received by the online gambling companies on June 1, just before the licenses were issued. The Spanish regulator, Direccion General de Ordenacion del Juego, stated that one of the prerequisites for obtaining a license was that the operator purges its Spanish player list and start from a zero base. The idea is to ensure that all licensed operators begin on an even footing and that advantages secured during the ‘illegal’ online gambling period are not carried forward. The operators were currently operating at Spanish sites with the .com domains. All players’ accounts at these sites will have to be closed before the online gambling operators restart at the new sites under the .es domains. The players will have to cash out at the old sites, open new accounts at the new sites and make fresh deposits. The Players will lose their VIP status in the process because the online gambling operators will not be allowed to transfer any information from the old sites to the new ones. The affiliates will also be impacted because their existing links will have to be cut. The regulator has specifically pointed out that operators may not be involved in transitioning players or affiliates to their new dedicated Spanish websites, and that includes tagging accounts to the original referring affiliate. However, this move will be of immense benefit to the new operators who had refrained from tapping into the Spanish online gambling market from offshore locations and perhaps just reward as well. Spanish players may find it inconvenient and irritating to have to register again. But they should use this opportunity to reevaluate options and examine inducements available for switching to different operators.

The Spanish online gambling market will go live only on June 5. This understanding was reached between the regulator and the trade association JDigital. The new licensees did not want to commence operations on a weekend when the tech support would be low to attend to any possible glitches and the player traffic would be high. Hence though the licenses have been issued there will be a few days delay. This will provide an opportunity to the well-established online gambling operators to work out fresh marketing strategies for recapturing market share.