05/12/06 Yogonet.com
Spain : Internet betting operations approved in Madrid

Spain).- The Government Council of Madrid approved the measure that regulates bets, which includes those related to sports event, competition sports or another previously fixed event, and allows the companies of the sector to market the Internet bingo and casino games.

Besides, the regulation prevents underaged people to participate, as well as people registrated (for their own will or by a legal sentence, personally or through relatives) in The Banned Registry Office in which people will gambling problems or those banned by law are registrated. In a press release, the councellor of the Economy Minister, Hidalgo, explained that the decree has been favourably informed by the State Council.

Hidalgo remarked that, with the approval of this measure, Madrid is “one of the first” autonomous communities in regulatin this type of game, leaing behinf the “great legal void” that exists on the matter and giving “legal security and transparency” to the citizens that wish to make bets.

Once the regulation comes into force, all the firms that comply with the regulation may offer bets from one euro or a fraction in combined bets, on sports events or any kind of event with an uncertain result.

The admninistrative autorization will be granted on renewable periods of five years as long as they comply with the requirements demanded. The rule allows to make bets via media or computers and interactive systems, as well as Internet or telephones.

The licensed companies will have to establish a procedure to formalize bets in security conditions and maximum guaranteees, in order to establish a user registry to prevent the access to the system to underaged and people that have asked to be included in the Registry of Banned People of Madrid Council, in which there are currently more that 15,000 citizens registrated.

According to the place in which bets are performed, advertisements could be internal (developed in the site where the event is being held) or external (outside the event). Besides, there are three different types of bets to be developed in the region: mutual (the sum bet is distributed between the winners and the fund destinated to prizes could not be less than 70% of the total of the amount bet), of compensation (in which the participant makes a bet and the prize is the result of the multiplication of the cost of the winning forecasts by the the rate that the firm had previously validated) and crossed (the company acts as intermediary and guarantor of the quantities bet among third parties).

The regulation allows controlled and ordered advertising in the interior of stores and betting zones, specialized magazines, leisure guides, sports pages or sports spaces in any medium of communication. Besides, it lets the rest of the private game make a controlled advertising by any medium of communication on the name of the companies of the sector, the type of games, the timetables and other services offered to the customers. The radio and television advertisements could not be performed during the broadcasting of programs and spaces specially adressed to the children.

From the fiscal point of view, the autonomous regulation establishes that the type applied to this type of bet is the 10%, which will be applied over the difference between the total of the quantity bet and the cost of the prizes obtained by the participants of the game (Collection - Prizes).