News

Tuesday, 02 November 2010 11:26

The tiny enclave of Gibraltar has now been given global recognition of its status as an online gambling centre as its credibility grows alongside its attractiveness to operators. 

It may not be as well known or as glamorous as Monaco, which is still Europe's premier land based casino gambling attraction, but sharing the same Mediterranean coastline is Gibraltar, which has become the home of some of the top online gambling operations in the world. Why this has happened has a lot to do with the success of the UK online gambling industry and the associated government cream off in taxation. Some of the top firms viewed Gibraltar as en extension of the UK but without the tax burden, so they moved their operations to "The Rock" as it is often referred to in order to take advantage of its relaxed regulations and low taxation.

One of the first of these was Victor Chandler, a UK bookmaker who moved a part of its business operation to southern Europe as long ago as 1998. This gave the company an edge over its competitors while providing its customers with tax and gambling duty free betting.

Since then, more have followed suit to relocate their headquarters in the Europort locality, which has grown up on land reclaimed from the sea on the west side of The Rock. At present there are around 20 of the world's major online gambling and gaming companies based in Gibraltar, having been joined earlier this year by two big names from the UK, William Hill and Ladbrokes.

The UK government has since removed its gambling tax to prevent more companies following suit and taking their revenue away from the treasury and into the coffers of the Gibraltar government, which is already established as one of the few countries in the world bucking the trend with the current economic recession. This year saw an increase in The Rock's Gross Domestic Product at a time when most countries around the world are seeing a decrease.

Regulation and careful taxation of businesses including the Internet gambling sector has brought prosperity to the tiny country and its 30,000 inhabitants, with around 2,000 jobs created locally through online gambling, making it Europe's largest employer in that industry. Having a high proportion of its business in this sector is seen as potentially problematic by analysts as world events could at ant time upset the commercial applecart in Gibraltar. This is something that the government are aware of and are careful to attract other forms of business by offering some of the lowest commercial tax rates in Europe.