Gibraltar in challenge to new UK casino laws

It has been previously reported in the general casino news at casinos.ie that the UK was about to introduce a 15% tax on online casinos and other online gambling as well as introducing a requirement for online casino companies to acquire a license and it was even thought that the Irish government might be watching and thinking about doing something similar although nothing about that has appeared in the casino news. It now appears however that a group of online casino and online gambling operators are going to challenge the new laws before they come into force. Interestingly enough it appears from casino news articles that the group challenging the new rules is the Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association which represents those online casino companies that have a base in the territory and the claim is that requiring a license from the UK when they already have a license from Gibraltar is in breach of European law. That story has been heard many times before where for example the Dutch still run a monopoly in land based casino in the country and online casinos are illegal, not that that stops many Dutch people playing at online casinos. The new law will require online casinos based overseas (which is virtually all of them) to pay 15% tax on UK customers regardless of where the online casino is based but Gibraltar, according to casino news reports, is clearly concerned that this will encourage online casino operators to relocate to the UK to avoid dual taxation. They also point out that it will be difficult for the UK authorities to regulate overseas based companies to ensure that they are complying with, for example, money laundering laws but that would appear to be the same for the Gibraltar licensing authority. None of this affects Irish casino players for the time being.