Licensing and regulation: Can we get a licence?

Law 86-26 fixes licence terms directly in primary legislation rather than leaving them to regulation. Article 47 sets casino licences at ten years, available only to establishments located within four-star-or-higher-rated hotels. Lottery bank licences move from two to five years, while casinos remain at ten. Internet gambling, under Articles 75 to 77, requires a ten-year operating licence restricted to duly authorised legal persons, with rates and conditions to be set via decisions of the Council of Games of Chance. The law expressly extends its authorisation and supervisory scope to businesses providing technological, logistical or manufacturing support to the industry, bringing B2B suppliers formally within the licensing perimeter. The issuing authority throughout is the new Dirección General de Juegos de Azar, an autonomous authority under the Ministry of Finance and Economy. What remains outstanding is the detailed conditions package: application fees and fit-and-proper criteria are expected from the President's implementing regulations, due within ninety days of promulgation, and the Council's internal regulations, due within a further one hundred twenty days.