Online gambling

Alderney, the British Channel Island just off the coast of France, is pleased to announce that following an update to their online gaming framework, more online casinos and gaming sites are continuing to choose the Alderney Gaming Commission for their regulatory body of choice. In the last two months alone, Alderney has granted six more licenses, bringing the total number of online casino licensees to twenty-five. In October alone, Alderney has already issued four licenses to WagerWorks and Asia Pacific Gaming, while last month licenses went to William Hill and SportingBet.

And with monumental changes taking place in the U.S. online gambling landscape, Alderney is hoping to attract an even larger number of gaming operators in the coming months. The head of eCommerce Development in Alderney, Robin Le Prevost, said he is very confident in the new regulatory package, which incidentally harmonizes well with the online gaming regulations being adopted in the UK and promulgated by the eCommerce Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance (eCOGRA). Prevost also said it is inevitable that more online casino operators will turn to Alderney as they withdraw from the increasingly hostile U.S. market.

Prior to rewriting their regulations, Alderney was not as successful at attracting gaming companies as other jurisdictions like Kahnawake and Antigua and Barbuda were. However, seeing the need to update their outdated policies, Alderney constructed a major rewrite, amounting to a new interest from overseas gambling companies. And while Antigua chooses to do battle with the U.S. in the midst of the World Trade Organization (which now is more about principle than business), Alderney is bidding for online casinos to focus their operations on an expanding European and Asian online gambling market.

Now, Alderney must prepare to compete with other notable gaming jurisdictions like the UK, Gibraltar, Isle of Man and Mohawk territory of Kahnawake in offering a stringent, yet operator-friendly gaming license. With tight regulation protocols in place, Alderney believes their most tempting offer (as far as online casinos are concerned) are their taxation laws and licensing incentive deals. Considering the current rate at which operators are applying for licenses, these sentiments cannot be dismissed.