Curaçao Government Approves Sweeping Licensing Reforms in Online Gambling Hub
Curaçao will implement substantial reforms to its controversial online play regime, including the establishment of an main(a) licensing authority. This will make higher entry barriers for operators, as the tiny land land seeks to shake off away its notorious reputation for slack oversight.
Curacao’s Council of Ministers has now sanctioned statute law seeks to modernise gaming ordinance inward the Caribbean island. The move follows economical pressure sensation from the Netherlands.
Curaçao is a constituent land of the Kingdom of the The Netherlands but has been an independent body politic since 2010. The accelerator for rectify appears to experience been the Dutch government’s agreement to discharge a third tranche of financial aid to the island to facilitate comfort the economical pressures of the coronavirus pandemic.
The The Netherlands launched its own regulatory regime inward Oct endure twelvemonth and is taking a subdued look at of Curaçao licensees that proceed to butt its citizens. These are at present considered to live ignominious marketplace operations.
A recent article by the Dutch investigative news media site Follow the Money suggested that around 12,000 Curaçao-licensed websites were offering online gaming to countries crosswise the world, including the Netherlands.
Early Adopter
Curaçao was a very betimes adopter of online gambling, issuing its foremost licenses dorsum in 1996. These were its 1st and last. Four skipper licenses were handed downward to foursome corporations, Cyberluck Curaçao, Gaming Curaçao, Curaçao Interactive Licensing, and Antillephone.
These companies have been handing come out sub-licenses haphazardly ever so since, piece at the same clip providing turnkey gaming solutions to assist have operators upwards and running.
These sub-licensees are attracted to the island past tax breaks and permitted to run without authorities oversight. That afforded almost no consumer protections to players.
Under the new regime, the soon-to-be created licensing authorization will wrest hold in of licensing from the quaternary private entities.
The Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA) testament supply gaming permits both to B2C operators and B2B suppliers and testament hold the force to revoke licenses, gift it greater compass to impose new and existing laws.
Adherence to enhanced money laundering measures will live a precondition of licensing, as will a demand to have got at least trinity paint employees living and workings on the island. However, on that point are no more specific regulations that testament trammel operators from targeting specific markets, including the Netherlands.
Like It Or Lump It
Curaçao Finance Minister Javier Silvania told iGB Monday that he did not have a problem with operators pulling come out of the jurisdiction as a event of the reforms.
“If companies need to relocate, that’s fine,” he said. “The unexampled greenback ensures the monitoring is below the control of the government. It is important for the authorities to know who has licenses, because at this gunpoint it is not e'er top who holds one.
“I experience no more emerge at all with companies leaving Curaçao because at the electric current time Curaçao is not making a great deal money from them,” he added. “It’s the master copy licensees that are making the to the highest degree money; the administration is scarcely making any.”