Denmark Postpones Licensing Online Casinos Due to Tax Dispute

Denmark is still not ready to finally implement its new gambling legislation despite promising to do so by January of this year. The new licensing process for casino operators was scheduled to begin in January 2011, under the new Danish gambling laws. Once again it was delayed due to an ongoing dispute over taxes.

Troels Lund Poulsen, the Danish Tax Minister, met with representatives of the casino industry to explain the delay. He informed the casino insiders that the new online gaming rules will be finalized once the tax levels are agreed upon sometime within the next six months.

Rumors are floating around that the tax dispute might go on for a very long time, possibly for two years. The meeting was arranged to quash the rumor regarding the two year wait for internet gambling licenses in Denmark, which the Tax Minister called absurd. Mr. Poulsen commented that after his meeting with EU Minister for Competition, he was assured that European Commission would do all in its power to quickly resolve the tax dispute.

The tax dispute revolves around Danish politicians arguing about the best ways to spend future online casino tax revenues while at the same time preventing the licenses from being issued to generate the tax revenue. Another sore point is the provision in the law which allows online gambling operators to pay lower taxes than traditional land based casinos.

The minister went on to promise that the implementation of the licensing process by the Danish government will take place within six months. Online casino analysts are dumbfounded as to why it would take up to two years to iron out such simple points of contention, when hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue are at stake. Dansk Spil, a government controlled monopoly currently controls all online casino in Denmark. Danes are discouraged from gambling online at foreign based online casinos.