The Portuguese regulator Servico de Regulacao e Inspecao de Jogos has revealed that it has issued its seventh license to offer iGaming in the EU country.
The new iGaming license was granted to Figueira Company Praia and will see the company being able to provide sports betting via the CasinoPortugal.pt website.
Figueira Company Praia is currently the holder of only the third license that has been issued for fixed odds online sports betting in Portugal, the others being Bet.pt and Betclic.pt.
Sports betting is taxed at a prohibitive 8-16% of turnover after being subject to a State Aid filing with the EU by the Remote Gaming Association in 2015, challenging the Portuguese betting tax as breaking EU trade rules.
Bet.pt and Betclick.pt are among the four sites licensed by the Gambling Inspection and Regulation Service to offer online casino, the others being EstorilSolcasinos.pt and PokerStars.pt. EstorilSolcasinos.pt is a JV between GAMING1 and Estoril Sol, the Portuguese branch of Asia’s Stanley Ho Group.
Poker and Casino are taxed at between 15% and 30% of gross gaming revenue and is capped once annual income touches €10m.
PokerStars is currently the sole holder of a dot.pt online poker license that offers Portuguese players tournaments and hold’em and Omaha cash variants.
Since Betclic was granted the first permit in May of last year, five companies have now been granted licenses for the dot.pt market.
In March of this year, the Regulater announced that an amount of €82.2m ($92.1m) in revenue was generated by the Portuguese iGaming market in the 10 month period from late May 2016 through to March, 2017.
