Denmark has gotten the green light from the European Commission on a package of amendments that would update Denmark’s online gambling legislation. It will put forth a number of significant modifications to the current legislation, which should go into effect by the end of 2015. Denmark is one of the very few European countries that seemingly has found a successful formula for regulating its gambling industry. Denmark has reported in recent times an increase in the total gross gaming revenues. There has been an overall two-percent growth in 2014 compared to 2013.
Their future looks bright, as the Danish government has made up its mind to amend the current legislation by strengthening the laws in place against money laundering, and they will modify the taxation applied to licensed gambling operators. They will create a new license specifically targeting daily fantasy sports (DFS) operators. Once this goes through, the amendments will put into place differentiate between operators based on their yearly revenues which will lead to an increase in the licensing costs for the licensed companies who generate revenues for more than KR100 million ($16 million) a year. It will decrease for those who do not go over the KR100 million limit.
This legislative change will be on top of the already existing gaming taxes that Denmark has. Online gambling will still be subject to a high 28-percent corporation tax along with a 20-percent tax on their gross gaming revenues.
According to Danish legislators, the country’s new legislated market, could lead to further growth of the industry in Denmark and may also facilitate the entrance of new operators and may even influence other neighbouring EU nations. As of now, the sites in Denamrk that offer online gambling services with a regular State-issued licenses are: PokerStars, bwin, partypoker, Unibet, Danske Spil, Betsson, NordicBet, ParadisePoker, and Scandic Bookmakers.
The Danish gaming regulator ‘Spillemyndigheden’ recently reported that these nine online gaming operators, realized an estimated DKK 2.855 billion ($400 million) in gross gaming revenue. That represented a big 20-percent growth from the DKK 2.375 billion reported in 2013, and an even bigger 40-percent growth when compared to the DKK 2.045 billion ($330 million) in revenues collected in 2012. This reform of Denmark’s Gambling Act, was the first one since they set the initial regulations approved in 2012. The new legislation will allow the operators who already possess a license to renew it at a lower cost. It will create a new DFS-specific yearly license for new operators, whose cost has still not been set or has not been made public. Whatever it totals, these new regulations will amount to a more diversified and better regulated sports and online gambling sector.
