In the past few years, the Portuguese government has been trying to increase revenues and one of the projects to make this happen was the regulation of the online gambling market.
The new online gambling regulator, the Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ) announced the expected regulation back in April and providers expected the licensing process to begin a few months after.
Several companies left the market so that they don't violate the new regulation, expecting a quick licensing process. However, the process was severly delayed and in the meanwhile, a lot of Portuguese players started playing on sites that had no intention of purchasing a license, claiming that their service is legal under EU law.
The new regulation stated that companies which want to receive a license will have to pay taxes after the Portuguese players, ranging from a minimum of 15% (below €5 million in revenue) all the way up to 30% (above €10 million in revenue).
The online gambling companies found this number to be too high, but the real shock came months later.
Until December, everyone expected that the new market will be an open one, meaning players could participate in global games, but at the Gambling Compliance conference in Lissabon, Manuel Bandeira, head of the SRIJ has announced that the Portuguese market will be a segregated market.
The regulation released in April made no mention of such plans, but it all changed after the October elections. The governing party lost its majority in the parliament and the opposition also attacked the online gambling regulations.
Currently noone knows what the final regulation will be, but based on the announcement, a segregated market is the most likely outcome.
Segregated markets have performed catastrophically both in France and in Italy, the number of players and revenue generated has been steadily declining for years.
Several Portuguese politicians have voiced their concerns about the performance of a segregated market and about the fact that segregated markets could be against EU law.
Poker is very popular in Portugal and the loss of the Portuguese market would be a big blow to the already declining global market aswell.
