Login

Online Gambling 2024: Understanding Regulated Markets

A 2-part series article authored by Ramparts

24 February 2024

CONTENTS

With the proliferation of smart devices and rapidly expanding high speed internet coverage, online 24/7 gaming will continue to rapidly expand with the benefit of different products and new experiences to satisfy every demographic.

The global online gambling market is predicted to reach revenues  of USD107B in 2024. In addition the skill based gaming global market size is projected to grow from revenues of USD35.61 billion in 2023 to USD85.34 billion by 2030.

This growing industry supports a diverse range of operators, suppliers, professional advisers as well as generating large tax and other revenues for those jurisdictions who have taken the step of regulating the industry.

At its core the industry is an entertainment one, which thrives on providing and enjoyment and excitement to players, not guaranteed wins. Practically speaking, there would be no gaming industry if all players never lost or there was no downside, such as being subject to some form of advertising (i.e. social casinos, free entry skill games).

However, when the thrill turns into problematic behaviour, society takes notice. Financial hardship and even rare fatalities linked to excessive gaming raise concern. This mix of vulnerable individuals, pervasive advertising, addictive features and constant accessibility has fuelled the need for regulation to protect consumers whilst at the same time provide a transparent and level playing field for the industry.

In practice, different countries approach gaming regulation with varying standards and reasoning. Some haven't even addressed the online sector, clinging to outdated land-based regulations often controlled by government monopolies. This creates a patchwork landscape where consumer protection varies greatly.

Online Gaming Regulatory Landscape 2024

At its simplest, online or remote gaming, is conducted in a non-physical environment where players and operators do not use their physical senses to interact with each other. The scope of gaming in this article covers both gambling products and skill based or free entry products. The latter are generally outside the ambit of gambling law and licensing regulation, with examples being eSports competitions, social casino, and prize competitions.

The global landscape is made both of countries with laws and regulations which address these gaming products, often with accessible licensing regimes (known as regulated jurisdictions); and countries without any online gambling legal framework or very limited regimes inaccessible to private operators (known as unregulated jurisdictions).

To make life even more complicated there may be states or provinces within countries which have their own specific gambling laws and regulations, some of which are regulated and others unregulated. Examples would be the USA, Canada, India and South Africa. In addition, some countries only regulate specific gambling sectors, such as France and Australia which have licensing schemes for online betting but completely prohibit online casino.

The Different Business Models in the Gaming Industry

As a result of the above, different business models arise depending on the operator’s risk appetite and desire for predictability and stability. In general operators targeting regulated markets will need to cope with local licensing and a fragmented compliance regime. The payoff will be manageable risks and stability, albeit at higher operating costs and lower profits.

The reverse is true of those targeting unregulated markets, which often means short term unpredictable revenues albeit at lower costs and higher margins, as the tide of regulation sweeps across the globe. Unregulated markets are generally targeted by operators based in online gambling hubs which have supportive outward facing regulatory regimes. Whereby a single online gambling licence in a hub jurisdiction can enable an operator to transact with customers in multiple unregulated jurisdictions. These hubs mostly rely on the gaming taxes, fees and local investment by operators to support their economies. However, they need to be careful to balance the attractions of a lenient regulatory regime with the poor reputational downside too much leniency may cause through perceived business and money laundering risks that this may bring. More specifically this may cause them to score badly in terms of international standards with global institutions such as FATF, regulated payment providers, publicly listed suppliers and the customer base itself. Typically, these licensing hubs are in small sovereign, self-ruling jurisdictions, often offshore, for example Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Malta, Alderney, Curacao, Kahnawake, and more recently Tobique, Timor-Leste and Anjouan.

Finally, the business model followed by those wishing to circumvent gambling regulation in its entirety, is to focus on unregulated products. The attractions are obvious, with no need for gambling licensing with its associated cost, complexity, and compliance risks. Furthermore, similarities in different jurisdictions’ regulatory regimes, such as the definition of games of chance may allow products with a high enough level of skill to be operated without any need for a licence in multiple jurisdictions, thereby creating large pools of players who could (in a peer-to-peer game) be more readily available play against each other.

In this series of articles, I will look at each model in turn, focusing on trends and likely changes in 2024. These articles shall be updated throughout 2024 as new developments emerge in different jurisdictions.

 

REGULATED ONLINE GAMBLING MARKETS

There has been an accelerating trend for the past 10 years for countries to put in place online gambling laws and licensing regimes. The motivation is two-fold, firstly to protect consumers against the dangers of unregulated operators and secondly to raise revenues through taxes and fees. As more and more countries have followed this route, these goals have been realised and have prompted others to follow. The USA is a good example where this cascade process is occurring state by state. Soon countries with unregulated gambling regimes will be the exception rather than the norm.

 

  1. Trend of Increasing Compliance:

As we step into 2024, the trend of heightened compliance in regulated gaming  markets shows no sign of slowing down. This focus is primarily driven by the growing concern of problem gambling. Fuelled by negative publicity surrounding extreme cases, regulators are wielding a diverse arsenal of measures to combat this issue. However, concerns exist regarding the use of blanket compliance measures, which might stifle responsible operators while failing to effectively address the root causes of problematic gambling.

The Netherlands

The Dutch regulator - Netherlands Gambling Authority (NGA) has an ongoing consultation on its responsible gambling policy. This includes several measures which will, if adopted, introduce additional affordability and player review triggers. This seems to follow some of the UK Gambling Commission’s (UKGC) player interaction provisions, requiring monitoring against indicators of harm and need for positive interventions on a 24-hour basis.

In addition, player limits may be applied across all operators, again mimicking the UKGC’s one player view proposals. It remains to be seen how this will be implemented and how long it will take as it will require legislative change. These measures will come on the back of recent changes brought in July 2023, when a ban on untargeted advertising entered into force. This effectively banned all advertising for remote gambling except for online adverts that can be proven to only reach non-vulnerable groups (24 years and over).

Ontario

Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) which regulates the sector strictly enforces its policy of banning the public advertising of bonuses, free-spins, credits, and other inducements. These types of promotions are only allowed on the operator’s website or App or as part of targeted retention type campaigns to customers who have opted into direct marketing.   Despite Ontario being a relatively newly regulated jurisdiction, AGCO does not believe in giving time for operators to adjust but instead is active in supervision and enforcement. In August 2023, AGCO levied monetary penalties of CAD 100,000 against Apollo Entertainment for failing to meet Ontario’s responsible gambling requirements. These failures included lack of intervening with players who may have been experiencing gambling related harms, failing to implement an adequate voluntary self-exclusion program, as well as providing insufficient tools for players to set financial and time-based gambling limits (i.e., loss and deposit limits). We can expect continued supervision and enforcement by AGCO in the year ahead.

Great Britain

Great Britain (GB) leads the way when it comes to raising the standards of compliance. Its focus has and continues to be anti-money laundering and protection of vulnerable people against gambling harms. In fact, the UKGC seeks to export its principals and methods of regulating the online sector by liaising with and mentoring other regulators internationally. As a relatively mature regulated market covering all forms of online gambling products, including business to business (B2B) licensing, it has rich data sets to measure the impact and effectiveness of its regulatory and compliance regime.

Despite the above, there has been a public backlash against the perceived “evils” of online gambling spurred on by problem gambling horror stories, intrusive and deceptive advertising, and illegal lotteries. GB still heads the world when it comes to online gambling revenues, where online total Gross Gambling Yield from October to December 2023 were reported as GBP1.3 billion.

As a result, the 2005 Gambling Act which is criticised by some as too business friendly at the expense of the consumer protection, has been under review since December 2020. A White paper was published by Department for Digital Culture, Media & Sport in April 2023, setting out a range of proposed measures to tighten up the regulations mostly centred around player protection. This has generated a series of consultations by the UKGC, which are a necessary step to amending existing licence conditions and codes of practice.

One of the most controversial of these new measures is the imposition of blanket affordability and enhanced player checks at relatively low net loss thresholds.  Operational difficulties, let alone the impact on the player experience could be material once measures are fully imposed. Given the complexity of implementation, the UKGC is considering conducting another consultation on how these measures could be carried out. We can expect this to be thrashed out in 2024, where frictionless checks at the lower affordability thresholds (GBP125 net rolling loss in a 30-day period or GBP500 over a year) will only be made possible by having requisite data protection controls in place for operators, credit reference agencies and others to share information. The higher thresholds where a financial risk assessment will need to be carried out are set at GBP1000 net loss over a rolling 24-hour period (reduced to GBP500 for 18-24 year olds) and at GBP2000 net loss over a rolling 90-day period (reduced to GBP1000 for 18-24 year olds). Its more unlikely that these checks will be not so frictionless but instead require analysis and scrutiny of sensitive documentation requested from customers. The UKGC however shares a different view, where Andrew Rhodes its CEO stated that:

"It's estimated that just 3 percent of accounts would undergo financial risk assessments. And by our estimates at most just a tenth of that 3 percent would not have a frictionless check via credit reference agency or open banking data. So our estimate is that at most just 0.3 percent of account holders would ever be asked to directly provide the additional financial information that operators are already requiring of some customers.”

This outcome of this further consultation and no doubt subsequent pilots to test the frictionless systems will be a key development in 2024. No doubt other regulators will be following this closely and depending on the outcome may adopt similar measures in their jurisdictions.

For a more in-depth analysis on other proposals set out in the White Paper see our previous two articles here and here.

NEW REGULATED ONLINE GAMBLING MARKETS

With the growing trend of regulation sweeping globally, we can expect more opportunities for those focusing on the regulated business model. However, as these jurisdictions move from being unregulated, doors will most likely close for those on rely on targeting the unregulated space.

In the USA, several US states are considering or are likely to legalise online gambling. California, Illinois, Rhone Island, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New York are among those that appear to be contemplating legalizing online casino gambling. Georgia and Vermont may also pass legislation this year to legalise online sports betting. These states would then join others who have already made this journey, such as: in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, Delaware, Tennessee, and Connecticut.

Elsewhere we can expect the following to be regulated in 2024:

Brazil

On 30th December 2023, Bill of Law No. 3,626/2023 was enacted as Federal Law No.14,790/2023. For the first time this provides for a federal online gaming and betting licence and regulatory regime which is expected to come into effect in the second half of 2024

Some of the key elements of this new law are:

  • Applicants interested in applying for a federal license must be companies incorporated under Brazilian law with registered offices in Brazil and a minimum Brazilian share capital ownership of 20%. The 20% Brazilian ownership covers individual and corporate shareholders. There are several structuring options that can be explored to mitigate this requirement, where local advice should be sought in the form of our Brazilian gaming legal expert and contributor Neil Montgomery.
  • Details of the licensing process will be laid down by one or more Ordinances (Portarias) to be issued by the Ministry of Finance.
  • There will be no limitation on the number of licenses issued by Ministry of Finance, although, corporate groups with operators holding a federal license can only hold one state license. At this point it’s important to mention that there are existing State specific online gambling regimes in Rio de Janeiro, Paraná, and Paraiba. These States’ regimes are limited in terms of licensable verticals (i.e. do not include online casino) but have since mid-2023 started sending cease-and-desist letters to active and visible offshore operators offering products in their states. These letters appear aggressive where it appears that by sending out these notices, they are trying to show the market that it is worth applying for their state license in competition with the incoming federal licence otherwise they will try to pursue enforcement.
  • The federal License fee is stipulated as BRL30 million for a five-year term, covering up to three brands of each licensed operator.
  • The inspection fee will be applied monthly, ranging from BRL54,419.56 to BRL1,944,000.00, depending on monthly winnings payout.
  • For companies which are currently operating in the grey market, the Ministry of Finance will establish conditions and deadlines, of no less than six months, to comply with the provisions of Law No. 14,790/2023.
  • Operators will have to implement bet security and integrity mechanisms observing the Brazilian Data Protection Law (LGPD), measures to prevent anti-money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
  • Identifying procedures to ascertain the validity of the bettors' identity, requiring the use of facial identification/recognition technology, must also be implemented by operators.
  • Operators will also have to implement customer and ombudsman services, policies for preventing gaming addiction, match-fixing mitigation mechanisms and joining a Brazilian or international sports integrity organization.
  • Only financial institutions authorized by Brazil Central Bank will be allowed to operate the payment process and transactional accounts. Records of all movements in those transactional accounts, as well as the payment of winnings must be implemented in compliance with regulations to be issued by the Ministry of Finance.
  • Only licensed operators will be permitted to advertise nationwide, and those advertisements must: (i) include warnings about health problems triggered by compulsive and irresponsible gaming; (ii) target only adults; (iii) not depict gaming as socially appealing by celebrities or as an alternative to employment or extra income.
  • Law No. 14,790/2023 determines the taxable element from operators’ revenue from the collection of bets after the deduction of the payment of players’ winnings and applicable IRPF, less an amount of 88% applied to cover the operator's costs and maintenance expenses – will leave a balance of 12% GGR gaming tax to be paid. This 12% GGR tax will be allocated to certain specific public sectors and entities including education, health, sports, public safety, and social security.
  • Player net winnings are subject to personal income tax (IRPF) at the rate of 15% (this is half the rate paid in respect of other forms of lottery). This tax basis is however subject to the ratification (by Congress vote in 2024) where it has been proposed the definition of “net winnings”, be the cumulative net value of bets placed each year, after deducting losses incurred in the same period. It may also be possible to consider the IRPF exemption threshold of BRL2,112.00 per month (amounting to BRL25,344.00 per year) and the system under which players would calculate and pay IRPF (only once a year).
  • It is important to mention that fantasy sports were not included, thus it is currently exempt from prior authorization in Brazil. However, their winnings are subject to the same taxation as other types of betting.

For further analysis on the new regulations, check out our previous article on Brazil Betting and iGaming Regulations here.

 

Peru

Peru has enacted legislation to regulate Remote/Online Gaming and online Sports betting by publishing Law no. 31,557 in the Government Gazette on the 13th of August 2022. The relevant law is titled ‘Law Regulating Remote Gaming and Remote Sports Betting’, it was subject to a reform by the Law no. 31806 from 8th June 2023 and finally implemented by the Supreme Decree No 005-2023 from 13th October 2023, issued by the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR) (the “Supreme Decree”). 

A licensing regime has been enacted and will enter into force 120 days after the publication of the Supreme Decree in the official gazette, namely the 10 February 2024. This will inevitably bring the current offshore market to an end, creating robust local industry standards.

The Peruvian regulatory framework distinguishes between Remote Sports Betting and Remote Gaming, as the two authorised verticals and each will require its own licence.

Remote Sports Betting consists of a remote game, wherein the result of a sporting event or any other fact or circumstance that may occur in said sporting event is wagered. Only those sporting events that are part of a national or international association, sports federation, or league duly accredited and authorised in the country of origin are enabled for betting. Electronic sports (e-sports), fantasy sports and virtual sports are considered part of sports betting.

The remote games vertical includes games of chance that may include components of skill or dexterity, which involve placing bets other than remote sports betting.

The Supreme Decree has included under the category of remote games multiple-bet games, line games, Card Games, Poker Games, Blackjack, Roulette, Dice, Simulation of Sports or racing games, Balls/number extraction games, Keno or bingo games, Immediate Prize Games and Live Games.

The main elements of the Remote games and remote sports betting legislation include the introduction of:

  • A competent supervisory authority:The Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR) is the Government Body legally empowered to regulate and supervise the remote gaming industry through the General Directorate of Casino Games and Slot Machines (DGJMT).
  • A new licensing regime for the operation of technological platforms for remote gaming and remote sports betting open for legal entities incorporated in Peru or abroad, as well as any branches opened in Peru of legal entities incorporated abroad.
    • Operators may use domains with the extensions ".bet.pe", ".bet", ".com", ".pe" or ".com.pe".
    • Licences for remote gaming and sports betting to be granted separately, for a period of six years with the possibility of renewal.
    • A fixed gaming tax of 12% of the operator’s monthly net income less the maintenance expenses of the technological platform of remote games, or remote sports betting, equivalent to two percent (2%) of the monthly net income.
    • A guarantee of circa EUR 720,000 per license must be made in favour of the regulator.
    • Player funds must be kept in a local bank account.
  • An authorisation and registration procedure for technological platforms, games, progressive systems and other main components or services of technological platforms.
  • Technical requirements for the for technological platforms, games, progressive systems and other main components or services of technological platforms.
  • Responsible gaming measures.
  • Industry specific AML principles and regulations for the protection of minors.
  • Advertising and sponsorship restricted to authorised technological platforms.
  • Authorisation of ‘remote sports betting halls’ which are localised retail points, within which players access a remote operator’s products and can also make payments.
  • Authorisation of certification laboratories.
  • Blocking actions of unauthorised Websites, IP addresses, URLs and means of payment.
  • Currencies different than the national currency (Soles) can be offered by Operators (US Dollars or another currency). However, the use of cryptocurrencies is expressly prohibited by the new law.

A transitory regime has been established for those legal entities who prove they were operating platforms in the country prior to the enactment of the law. Such entities will be able to apply for a conditional authorisation within a period of thirty calendar days as of the date of the Law no. 31,55’s effective date (10 February 2024). This conditional authorisation will grant operators a maximum term of ninety calendar days to comply with technical requirements of the new regulatory framework (platform certification, registration and authorisation.

Ireland

On 2 December 2022, the Irish Government published the Gambling Regulation Bill (the Bill). The Bill compromises 9 Parts and 219 sections and is the most significant reform of gambling legislation in Ireland since the formation of the State. The Bill went before the Select Committee on Justice (the Committee) on 11 July 2023 and while many of the amendments were of a technical nature, several points were raised by the Committee which shed some light on the direction of the Bill going forward. It is expected or perhaps hoped (given significant delays already) that the Bill will be implemented into law this year with an effective date of late 2024 / early 2025.

Some of the most significant reforms which a provider should bear in mind when considering setting up in Ireland are:

  • Establishment of the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRAI) which will oversee licensing, advertising, consumer protection and social impact initiatives. The Bill also provides the GRAI with investigatory powers and the ability to impose sanctions.
  • Introduction of a comprehensive licensing regime which will include licenses for online and offline gambling, including B2C, B2B, lotteries and charitable events.
  • All suppliers of gambling products or gambling-related services will require a licence under the Bill. These suppliers will require a B2B licence to supply such products and gambling-related services to licensees within the State (regardless of whether the supplier is established inside or outside of the State), to persons outside of the State and to the operator of the National Lottery.
  • Stricter Advertising Rules including a ban on gambling advertisements between 5.30 am and 9 pm, restrictions on targeting vulnerable groups and limitations on content such as banning inducements to participate in gambling examples being offers to provide credits, enhanced odds, and free bets. Furthermore, gambling advertising which takes place on on-demand audio-visual media services (ODAVMS) and other electronic communication methods such as social media platforms will require providers to prove their intended audience subscribed to these services and gave “explicit consent” for receiving such advertising.
  • National Gambling Exclusion Register where individuals can self-exclude from all licensed gambling, with operators required to comply.
  • Enforceability of Gambling Debts: contracts and debts related to gambling become legally enforceable.

For a more detailed analysis of the proposed reforms, check out the 3-part series, previously published on Advennt. The first segment provides a comprehensive overview of the Bill, the second focuses on licensing and regulation and the third focuses on the proposed protective measures.If you would like to know more about upcoming developments for sports betting and gambling regulations in regulated markets, get in touch with our team of experts at support@advennt.com or fill up our enquiry form at the bottom of our Contact page.