Britain may bring in legislation allowing London-listed gambling companies to move their headquarters to Britain. The Sunday Times newspaper reported that it had seen documents in which the government said the move to Britain would provide Britain’s online gamblers with a “safe, well-regulated environmentâ€. By the paper’s information, also the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had been lobbying the Treasury to introduce a favorable tax regime for online gambling companies.
The biggest London-listed Internet gambling company PartyGaming Plc is based in Gibraltar, and is placed in the blue-chip FTSE 100 index. The company 888 Holdings Plc. which is one of the world’s most popular online gaming companies, is also incorporated in Gibraltar.
Amongst the major London-listed internet gambling companies there is BVI-based Empire Online Ltd, which also has arrangements to market Casino-On-Net (part of 888.com). The company is a leading provider of marketing services to the online gaming industry. Using online and offline advertising and marketing techniques, the Empire Online Group directs new players to its online poker and online casino websites. Software for Empire Online Ltd is provided by Playtech – a BVI incorporated company which is one of the leading software providers in the industry.
Other marketing techniques of Empire Online Ltd include the registration of suitable domain names for the purpose of redirecting internet traffic and the use of marketing agents. More recently, the Group has used offline marketing campaigns which have shown significant results.
Some time ago, the U.S. Congress also approved a bill to make it illegal for banks to process payments to gaming Web sites. This decision made most European operators to pull out of the United States, and hit the share prices of the U.S. companies.