Government Looking at Regulation of Offshore Bookmakers
December 27, 2009
The United Kingdom is looking to change the way that online gambling is offered in their country. They are working on legislation that would bring offshore online gambling sites back under their umbrella if they wanted to do business within the country. This of course does not make the online gambling vendors very happy as they thought that they were getting out from under their thumb by moving offshore.
According to the United Kingdom, the problem is that there could be illegal online gambling going on, or shady deals and they have no way of controlling them if they don’t control the online gambling market completely. When William Hill and Ladbrokes made the decision to move offshore as well, the government said that they realized it was time for them to take a stance on those offering online gambling within the country but not following the rules and regulations of online gambling as they had been set forth.
It really started with the amount of taxes that they were charging the online gambling companies, which is why so many of them left the UK and went offshore in the first place. However, in doing so they really hurt the racing industry within the country, and now they need to recoup some of that lost income.
They are now going to offer a new licensing regime for those offshore companies that want to do business within the UK. If they choose not to pay then they will not be allowed to offer online gambling in the country. They will also have to provide information on “suspicious online gambling patterns” so that they can take steps if need be. The offshore vendors will have to decide which is more cost effective for them.
