Sports betting provider Tipico have signed a deal with German Bundesliga side Werder Bremen. The three-year sponsorship deal will see Tipico become the club’s official sports betting provider as well enjoying a number of advertising privileges around the club’s stadium until 2015. Tipico Germany managing director Stefan Meurer, commented: “Tipico was the first sports betting company to come in as a sponsor in the Bundesliga. Now we are pleased to have found a partner in Werder, one of the most popular clubs in Germany”. Tipico was awarded one of the ill-fated Schleswig-Holstein sports betting licences and continues to market itself heavily in the German market.
The Remote Gambling Association has recommended that Italy adopt a sport-betting regime based on gross profits tax (GPT). The KPMG study, commissioned by the RGA, came to the conclusion that it would be better than the current tax on turnover that is driving players to gamble with companies not licensed in Italy. It was summed up by the KPMG report, which found: “We expect the increase in price which accompanies a turnover tax to have two effects on Italian remote gambling on sports”:
· To reduce the demand for gambling overall; and
· To incentivise Italian nationals gambling online to switch their gambling activity from onshore duty-paid providers to lower priced duty avoiding offshore providers.
Over in Spain the country’s gambling regulator has wasted no time getting stuck into the reams of unlicensed sites that exist. Since June 1, when the market opened, the Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego, according to Gaming Intelligence, has identified 80 sites that are in contravention of the rules.
Spanish land-based operators are setting up a new group focused on the country’s online market. Various Spanish sites, including Yogonet.com, report that Codere, Cirsa, Grupo Acrismatic and Top Rank Egasa Spain have set up the Empresarios de Juego Online Asociados (EJOA). Five more members of the group will be announced in due course and the main aim is “the optimization of synergies between the two channels of game management, improved regulations and their harmonization”.
