Curaçao gaming bill reaches parliament
The bill is designed to reform the Curaçao gambling sector.
Curaçao.- The Curaçao parliament will decide whether to approve the National Ordinance for Games of Chance (LOK), which will reform the Dutch Caribbean island’s gambling sector. The Curaçao Gaming Control Board (GCB) opened its portal for licence renewals in September and began accepting submissions on November 1.
The Ministry of Finance has also issued current licensees with a notice outlining the milestones for the transition to the new framework. It noted that the registration of existing sub-licences and subsequent application for a direct licence will close on March 31. Sub-licensees that don’t meet that deadline will not be able to operate beyond March 31.
From that date, the transition to the new framework under a provisional licence will only be possible for direct licence holders, although applications already in progress will continue.
Operators that want to continue to operate but don’t apply for a direct licence before March 31 will only be able to operate under their sub-licence until the master licence expires or until the LOK comes into force. They will then need to apply for a licence under the new legislation.
From January 1, licensees may use a digital seal on their websites. These will be issued by the GCB, and may be authorised for those that have submitted an application but are waiting for it to be granted.
New fees for Curaçao gambling licence
The minister of finance Javier Silvania has confirmed the fees for Curaçao’s new online gambling licences. Under LOK, B2B and B2C licences will be separated, although the fees will be similar.
For B2C licences, there will be an ANG9,000 ($5,000) application fee and one-off due diligence fees of between ANG250 and ANG500 per person depending on the person’s role. There will be an annual fee of ANG48,000 and a monthly fee of ANG4,000. Operators must pay ANG500 per year per domain, with no limit on the number of domains.
Operators who hold a licence under the current system of master licences will not have to pay the annual fee in the first year. The monthly fee will be ANG4,000 instead of ANG7,000 from then on. For B2B licences, the application fee, due diligence fees and annual fee will all be the same as with B2C licences. However, there will be no monthly fee.
