Online sports betting operator Bet Entertainment Technologies Ltd. has become the second company to receive a license by Portugal’s gambling regulator, Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ), to provide iGaming options in the country’s recently regulated market.
The regulatory body announced that License 002 has been issued after Betclic Everest Group became the first online sports betting operator to enter the local market towards the end of May.
Bet Entertainment has already launched its Portuguese website (bet.pt). It is operated on platform by popular developer and provider SBTech. Commenting on it website going live in Portugal, the gambling operator said in a statement that it would work hard on securing its “place of reference” in the local market.
As mentioned above, the launch of the bet.pt website came more than a month after Portugal saw its first licensed sports betting site go live. French company Betclic Everest Group has become the first operator to be granted a license by the country’s gambling regulator.
Portuguese lottery operator Santa Casa da Misericordia de Lisboaand and land-based casino operator Solverde have also been among the companies to have expressed interest in running a gaming website in the country.
It was last year when Portuguese lawmakers introduced new regulations for the country’s online gambling industry. However, it took quite some time before the first online sports betting license was issued. In May, when the Betclic website went live, the local gambling regulator said that more licenses would be granted very soon. As it could be seen, License 002 took more than a month to be issued.
It has also been reported that local players would not be able to play online poker before November 2016. According to people with knowledge of the matter, the delay in the issuance of poker licenses is due to shared liquidity issues.
Last year, SRIJ said that shared liquidity for online poker would not be permitted within the country’s borders. The regulator has changed its position on the matter since then and reportedly, it is now considering the opportunity to permit international liquidity sharing.
Two online poker-related proposals are currently reviewed by SRIJ. Once the regulator decides on the best possible option for the provision of poker in the country, the selected proposal would be further considered by the European Commission. The process is to take no less than three months, which means that first online poker licenses would not be issued before November 2016.
