licences for poker sites

pwd

Hi,
I'm trying to find information on getting a licence for a poker site, as well as other information about setup and running costs, and any non-obvious requirements and regulations. I can't find much about this specifically for ireland. I see that most of the big european sites seem to be based in the Isle of Man, which presumably means they are the cheapest for running a big site - a licence for such a site there would be £35k I think. A licence to set up such a site in the UK seems to cost around £10k (for the lowest profit bracket).
Any info on this appreciated.
Thanks

pwd

http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Casino%20(Eng)%20for%20Web.pdf/Files/Casino%20(Eng)%20for%20Web.pdf

I don't think that they give licences to set up websites like this in Ireland from reading that

Mr. Flibble

What do you mean a 'poker site'? Do you want to run the game yourself on your own software & accept money into your own account or just act as an affiliate for an existing poker site with your own skinned client?

RoundTower

it's not regulated here. The Isle of Man is a good location for offshore gambling companies for tax purposes, not because sites want to pay or not pay £35k a year for a licence.

robinblinds

pwd wrote: »

Hi,
I'm trying to find information on getting a licence for a poker site, as well as other information about setup and running costs, and any non-obvious requirements and regulations. I can't find much about this specifically for ireland. I see that most of the big european sites seem to be based in the Isle of Man, which presumably means they are the cheapest for running a big site - a licence for such a site there would be £35k I think. A licence to set up such a site in the UK seems to cost around £10k (for the lowest profit bracket).
Any info on this appreciated.
Thanks

Your legal costs will be the biggest outlay.

pwd

Toying with the idea of making software for a poker site yes; not in any sort of immediate time frame though.
You could make poker software with silverlight and .net. I thought that all poker websites require download and install of their software to play, and thus one which you could play diretly in your browser would have an advantage. There are a few websites that already allow this though, using Flash, such as Yahoo and the Flash Poker Network.

Yeah I know the Isle of Man is used because of the low tax. In the case of someone setting up an entirely new website, taxes wouldn't be such an issue early on because profit wouldn't be so high. Startup costs and running costs would be more of an issue because available capital would be far lower.

hotspur

If you are concerned with only making software then the issue of licensing to offer online gambling ought not to concern you. But my advice based on just your few sentences is not to waste your time. Also Ongame (Bwin's network) have had a java one for years. There is no niche in this respect. And to be honest individuals don't set up online poker sites these days. Getting a license is the very least of your issues.

RoundTower

hotspur wrote: »

honest individuals don't set up online poker sites these days.

Chucky the tree

I'd be curious of how this works too purely for curiousity reasons. How would someone go about setting up a skin on Ipoker for example?

lazlo

iPoker are sketchy about issuing their own terms of franchising without you providing a fully detailed business plan for your operation.

AdMMM

What a lot of the smaller operators do is approach a White label provider like [url=http:///www.tain.com]Tain[/url]. There are similar providers on other networks and they offer a cheaper way of having a skinned client.