Cyprus launches first sports betting site

The European territory keeps expanding its gambling industry, this time with SBTech, the first sports betting licensed operator.

Cyprus.- With the launch of SBTech’s Winmasters.cy, Cyprus has inaugurated its sports betting market. Last year, Cyprus decided to create a new gambling system and drafted and approved a new online regulatory scheme. Whilst a few companies have received licenses since the industry got regulated, SBTech became the first to launch its operations.

The new website will be exclusively directed at Cypriot players in both English and Greek. CEO of the company, Richard Carter, said that the successful on-schedule launch of the complete tier-1 solution for Winsmasters’ operations in the country comes after the hard work of all the company’s teams and the partnership with the operator. Sales and operations director at Winmaster, Christos Protopapas, added that “the speed with which our Cyprus launch has been achieved gives me great confidence that we will attain all our goals in this exciting new market.”

The regime unveiled last year establishes that online sports betting operators must pay a 13 percent tax of gaming revenue, 10 percent in direct tax, a 2 percent to local sporting bodies and the remaining 1 percent to fund responsible gaming programs. The license holders also have to pay US$32.000 annually and show that they have more than US$537 in capital reservations.

Cyprus has recently granted its first casino license as well, which is now under the power of Melco. Iacovos Galanos, on behalf of the consortium that obtained the license late last month, said that during its second year of operation, in 2022, the casino could contribute with US$911 million, 4 percent of GDP to the economy.