Gerry Sutcliffe, Britain’s Minister for Sport and Tourism has opened the way for Caribbean online gambling sites to advertise here.
The move comes after internet gambling sites in Antigua and Barbuda significantly strengthened its regulation of the industry.
The British market is seen as hot property for online sites based abroad due to the culture of gambling and recent support for online casino sites and online bingo.
However British based companies may now find it harder to secure prime time advertising and with increased competition the prices for securing a television add slot for example are sure to rise.
The benefits of Sutcliffe’s recognition to Antigua and Barbuda are two fold, firstly the reputation of sites licenced there will be significantly enhanced and secondly of course as of November 20th Caribbean based sites are allowed to advertise in the UK.
Antiguan Minister of Finance and the Economy L. Errol Cort said in a statement “We look forward to the expansion opportunities that this provides for our current licensees and to welcoming other remote gambling brands to (our) jurisdiction.”
The statement from the British Government on the issue stated that Minister Sutcliffe was content that Antigua and Barbuda has the legal authority to regulate gambling and that its current system of regulation and licensing provides a robust and adequately resourced framework to uphold shared objectives: to prevent gambling from becoming a source of crime; and to keep gambling fair and open and to protect children and vulnerable people.
This development could hit British based online gambling sites hard and comes on the back of Google lifting a ban on advertising from gambling companies throughout the European Economic Area (EEA).
The move allows a huge number of non-UK companies, such as Gibraltar-based 888.com and PartyGaming to increase their push into the British market.
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