Curaçao, is preferred by online gambling companies to avoid the gaze of industry watchdogs, but it may finally implement a proper regulatory system. Part of the Dutch Caribbean, the island nation has received financial support from the Netherlands to help get it through the COVID-19 pandemic.
But now that support is coming with conditions, namely that Curaçao must get its online gambling licensing regime under control.
Netherlands told Curaçao that it needed to make structural reforms to become more “financially, economically and administratively resilient” lest it not receive the third tranche of relief funds.
In October, Curaçao agreed to implement measures to crack down on financial crimes, including passing laws to authorize an independent regulator for its online gaming industry. Everything must be in place by March 1, 2021.
Curaçao technically has an online gambling licensing structure, but there is little to no actual enforcement of any rules. There are five companies, all telecommunications firms, that are called “master licensees.” They often try to make themselves looks like official regulators, but they still just licensees.
If Curaçao licensees do not go through the proper steps to follow regulations in other jurisdictions, they will be limited to mainly accepting customers from Curaçao itself, which only has about 160,000 residents.
The collection of gambling taxes, corporate taxes, and licensing fees. The master licensees pay ANG240,000 ($133,770) per year for their licenses, but the sub-licensees pay their fees to their master licensees. On top of that, many sub-licensees operate out of other countries and thus don’t pay taxes in Curaçao. The government is cut out of the loop for most income it should be generating.
Curaçao wants to charge ANG7,500 ($4,180) for a sub-license and a 2% tax on corporate profits. It is estimated that if the independent regulator is effective in its efforts, ANG100m ($55.7m) could be injected into the federal government’s coffers each year.
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