Gibraltar forms Brexit working group with DCMS and Gambling Commission
Chief minister Fabian Picardo says meetings “will lead to an enhanced egaming trading relationship” between Gib and UK
The UK and Gibraltar governments have set up a Brexit working group to discuss how leaving the EU will affect remote gambling operators on the Rock.
The ‘Inter-Governmental Working Group on Online Gambling’ includes the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and the Gambling Commission, as well as private sector advisors and Gibraltar’s gambling minister Albert Isola.
Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo
Chief minister Fabian Picardo told EGR Intel the first meeting, held this week, “kick-started a process which will lead to an enhanced online gaming trading relationship between Gibraltar and the UK”.
“It is the result of requests made to the UK government further to the Brexit referendum result last year,” Picardo explained.
The body is part of a larger cross-governmental council that regularly meets to discuss Brexit’s impact on trade between Gibraltar and the UK.
Several firms have expressed concern that Brexit would affect their Gibraltar operations – 888, for example, expressed interest in moving those operations to Malta – but the Gibraltar government has downplayed those concerns.
Since then, Isola has announced a restructuring of the jurisdiction’s egaming tax system, to “modernise and consolidate the current charges into a simpler and more consistent model of taxation and fees”.