Online casinos rush to new tax retreat

11/03/2008		Online Casinos Rush to New Tax Retreat
Home History Games News Dictionary		Internet casino companies are fighting for their spot of residency in Alderney, the small, most northerly island in the British Channel. Most, for tax reasons. There has recently been a change in the United Kingdom’s legistration allowing for some tax breaks for internet casinos and poker. Totesport Casino, related to the similarly named Tote betting agency, is among the first to make a move, but they say it’s tax-unrelated. Their current home base on Curacao (in the Caribbean) did not allow Totesport to advertise it’s sport-site and the move was in order to ensure they could offer the product to the UK. An advantage, surely, will be the fact that such a change will guarantee the establishment can evade a 15% “remote gaming duty” three months old at their current location. There are few countries from which online gambling companies can advertise from to the UK. This alteration came in September of 2005 with the Gambling Act that designated a long list of countries from which it was illegal to do so. Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Alderney, and the facets of the European Economic Area were approved on claimed “white list.” The only other option for Totesport was to move the business to the UK itself. Since the legislation change, the spurt has been tremendous: the number of applicants from online casinos is double what it was a year and a half ago. Other applicants include representation from Rank, Harrah’s, William Hill and even Gala Coral. Mr. Robin Le Prevost, as the head of the electronic- commerce at the Alderney Gambling Control Commission was quoted as saying that much of the new interest was coming in from the Americas and Asia, although there was a jump in interest from within Europe as well.

11/03/2008

Online Casinos Rush to New Tax Retreat

Internet casino companies are fighting for their spot of residency in Alderney, the small, most northerly island in the British Channel. Most, for tax reasons. There has recently been a change in the United Kingdom’s legistration allowing for some tax breaks for internet casinos and poker.

Totesport Casino, related to the similarly named Tote betting agency, is among the first to make a move, but they say it’s tax-unrelated. Their current home base on Curacao (in the Caribbean) did not allow Totesport to advertise it’s sport-site and the move was in order to ensure they could offer the product to the UK. An advantage, surely, will be the fact that such a change will guarantee the establishment can evade a 15% “remote gaming duty” three months old at their current location.

There are few countries from which online gambling companies can advertise from to the UK. This alteration came in September of 2005 with the Gambling Act that designated a long list of countries from which it was illegal to do so. Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Alderney, and the facets of the European Economic Area were approved on claimed “white list.” The only other option for Totesport was to move the business to the UK itself.

Since the legislation change, the spurt has been tremendous: the number of applicants from online casinos is double what it was a year and a half ago. Other applicants include representation from Rank, Harrah’s, William Hill and even Gala Coral. Mr. Robin Le Prevost, as the head of the electronic- commerce at the Alderney Gambling Control Commission was quoted as saying that much of the new interest was coming in from the Americas and Asia, although there was a jump in interest from within Europe as well.