.svg)
Vanuatu is the latest remote jurisdiction to pitch a revised regulatory framework to online gambling operators amid global offshore licensing turbulence.
The Pacific island nation is promising industry-friendly online applications and a near-zero tax on gross gaming revenue (GGR), a spokesperson for the newly formed Vanuatu Gaming Authority (VGA) said.
The VGA will begin accepting applications for its new Interactive Gaming Licence within days and launch its internet portal “in the coming weeks”, the spokesperson told Vixio GamblingCompliance on Thursday (July 4).
The VGA also confirmed the details of a report on Tuesday by Asia Gaming Brief (AGB), with a Vanuatu dateline, that include revisions to application fees, annual fees and wagering taxes in the Interactive Gaming Act 2000.
The new regime will impose a flat 1 percent wagering activity tax on GGR, instead of the current 5 percent tax on gross turnover for fixed-odds wagering or an 18 percent tax on gross profit.
The licence application fee has been set at €5,000 ($5,400) and an annual licensing fee at €10,000 with a 15-year validity, the AGB report said.
The report said applications will be available “entirely online”, suggesting minimal obligations for operators to travel to Vanuatu, and that the scheme will favour B2C operators that target “pre-regulated markets”.
Two URLs will be issued per licence, with additional URLs available for a fee, opening the scheme to white-label operations, it said.
The VGA told Vixio that it serves as an exclusive “private agent to the regulator” and falls under the Department of Customs and Inland Revenue, whose acting director Collins Gesa is the formal regulator.
The AGB report quoted finance minister John Salong as saying: “Our new application process has been designed to ensure timely processing while at the same time allowing for strict background checks prior to any licence application being granted.”
The report also features a photograph of Salong shaking hands with the VGA’s chief executive, Macyn White.
However, the application form linked to in the AGB report only cites the Gaming (Control) Act 1983 as amended and does not refer to the Interactive Gaming Act 2000, which was reportedly amended to facilitate regulatory changes.
Full details of the reported amendments to the Interactive Gaming Act, including any new requirements for registering a local business, were unavailable at publication time.
No amendment bill or other details of its contents are available on Vanuatu’s government or parliamentary websites.
Although Vanuatu is the latest remote jurisdiction to push for new business amid migration of online gambling licensees from Curaçao and the Philippines, for example, it has one of the longest histories in interactive gambling, described by Salong as “pioneering roots in the e-Gaming industry”.
Other remote jurisdictions to enter the global market in recent times include the island of Tinian in the US-controlled Northern Mariana Islands, which removed a land-based operation condition from its online gambling licence.
East Timor, the Comoros island of Anjouan and the Canadian First Nations of Tobique and Kahnawake have also entered the fray as the once-inscrutable regulatory scheme in Curaçao prepares to toughen regulations.
