Spain Allows Licensees to Offer Online Slots

Both Net Entertainment and Playtech are among the first companies to be allowed to offer online slots to operators in Spain.

In Spain, the beginning of June is the beginning of a new stage for licensed online casinos. Licensees can now offer online slots in a move that comes after other games weren't taking in the amount of play that was previously hoped for. Net Entertainment and Playtech are both on the wagon of software developers who are now offering slots to their Spanish operators, but there's a lot more to it than a simple expansion of their game selections.

Regulatory Problems

Up until now, Spanish operators have been able to offer lots of casino games other than online slots. However, slots tend to have a higher return over time. Even though the games themselves have similar payout rates in many instances as table games, players enjoy longer sessions at slots on average. They also bring in a lot of players that aren't interested in traditional table games. It's also a concern that unless these games are allowed, players will just get in on the action with unlicensed/unregulated sites instead.

With high-quality software providers like Playtech and Net Entertainment being given the freedom to offer their slots to players through licensed operators, this puts the government in a winning position. Instead of providing players with incentives to play with unlicensed operators and handicapping the licensed companies when it comes to competing in the open market, they've done the sensible thing and given the operators the power they need.

Similar Issues in France

Both Spain and Italy started off not allowing online slots to be offered, and they both found out fairly quickly that this was a losing proposition because of the dynamic between the licensed and unlicensed sites listed above. France is in the same boat right now where they do not allow online slots to be offered, and they're pushing tons of players into the open arms of unlicensed operators. This hurts everybody, and sooner or later, they're going to have to figure out that players are going to get in on the slots action regardless of whether they allow it or not.