September 8, 2015

Decree Law No. 66/2015 took effect on 29^th June. Although the piously-named Santa Casa di Misericordia retains certain monopoly rights (for example over lotteries) private operators are allowed to apply for gaming licenses for the first time. That said, the implementation of the new law has not been without drama. The primary law has taken effect without the secondary regulation required to enable the issuance of licences and no transition arrangements have been made. In order, presumably, not to look like ‘bad actors’ later on when the Portuguese application process opens, numerous operators have suspended Portuguese operations in the face of warnings from the authorities and threats of ISP blocking. As if the Scylla of incompetent execution were not enough, operators must also navigate the Charybdis of a 16% turnover tax, although it is unclear who has it worse, those operators or our poor readers who must decipher Greek metaphors about Italian seas to better understand Portuguese gambling regulation. What part of the French and German regulatory debacles led the Portuguese to conclude that a 16% turnover tax was the best way to avoid a black market, and stimulate competition and revenues, isn’t clear. In their defence it can be said confidently that they would not be the first country to liberalise or indeed the first regulator to regulate gambling based on motives nothing to do with good regulation and in apparent defiance of basic common-sense.