The principality of Andorra, a tiny nation of 85,000 people wedged between France and Spain in some spectacularly beautiful mountain country, could be the next European regulator and licenser of online gambling.
Andorran lawmakers are currently working on a comprehensive review of the country’s gambling legislation which specifically includes the regulation of online poker, and a final draft is almost ready for parliamentary submission and voting, probably around the middle of 2015.
The Legislative Committee draft requires that aspirant online poker providers obtain a class D licence, which would specifically allow them to offer games that include a combination of skill and luck in their gameplay.
Other provisions of the draft deal with land casino gambling and the possibility of creating a single brick and mortar casino licence…justified not so much by the small domestic population, as the influx each year of some 10 million tourists.
The online poker licenses will be controlled by a new regulator dubbed Consell Regulador Andorra del Joc (CRAJ), which will ensure that operators have strict measures to exclude criminal elements, the under-aged and problem gamblers, along with anti-money laundering precautions.
Depending on the restraint of tax-hungry politicians, the advent of online poker licenses in Andorra could be an attractive proposition. The country has a benevolent corporate tax regime that could appeal to poker operators.
Andorra is not a member of the European Union, giving its lawmakers flexibility in how they structure a licensing and tax system within the revised gambling laws.