Portugal grants another online gaming licence

Portugal’s gambling regulator has approved two new licences to Malta-headquartered Caravel Entertainment.

Portugal.- Comissão de Jogos do Turismo de Portugal, IP, the entity in charge of issuing gambling licences to operators in Portugal, has decided to grant two new licences to Caravel Entertainment.

The Serviço Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos do Turismo de Portugal (SRIJ), the gambling regulator from Portugal, revealed that at a meeting held on November 11, 2019, the board decided to issue to Caravel Entertainment Limited a licence to operate sports betting in the country, where the consumer played against the operator.

The second licence to Caravel is for games of chance, such as blackjack, roulette and slots, SRIJ said. Caravel will be able to operate those games and more at moosh.pt, according to SRIJ.

Illegal gambling prevails in Portugal

The Portuguese Association of Online Gambling and Betting (APAJO) has released a new poll that shows that more than half of online gambling is done through illegal sites. The survey indicates that 56% of nationally registered players bet through licenced and unlicensed online gambling sites. But of these, only 6% bet exclusively through illegal websites and 44% do it on licensed sites.

The recent survey, commissioned by APAJO from AXIMAGEM, included 609 effective interviews through which it was found that about 94% of registered players had already played for money in 2019.

42% of the registrations were done before 2016 when the regulation of the sector came into force, APAJO said. The remaining 58% happened between 2016 and 2019, with 20% happening in 2018. In 2019, among consumers registered only between January and June, almost 70% were registered only on licenced platforms.