New Era of Online Gambling in Spain Starts on June 5

Renewed Spanish gambling laws came into effect on June 1, well, officially they go live on June 5, thanks to a special delay agreement between the operators and industry trade association.

By the time business ended on June 1, Spanish officials managed to issue 15 licenses for gambling activities in the country including online casinos in Spain. Operators receiving the licenses in the first batch will be able to start offering real money gambling to Spanish citizens from June 5.

The first two companies to announce their successful applications were Poker Stars and GTechG2. Spokesperson for Poker Stars, Eric Hollreiser, even commented to Spain gambling news: “We are happy to confirm that Poker Stars was today granted a license to operate in Spain and we plan to launch the Spanish website on June 5.”

He went on to add: “For now, Spanish players can continue to compete on our international site as normal and don’t need to take any action. As always, Poker Stars is committed to providing players with a superior customer service, software and security. You can rest assured that your funds in this transition are totally safe and available. We will provide more details on the transition next week.”

The GTechG2 spokesperson stated that the operator enjoys an excellent position on the new market with fourteen clients using their online poker, casino and bingo software.

Bet365 was another company to confirm that it had paid the not-so-long-ago introduced Spanish retro-tax and had received a licence. Other companies to have successfully acquired the Spanish license include Sportingbet, Ladbrokes, Betfair, Codere, Cirsa, Jaxx, 888, and bwin.party.

Spanish gambling regulators expect other operators to follow soon and apply for the second batch of gambling licenses for the newly liberalized market.