Curaçao’s parliament has approved and passed the National Ordinance for Games of Chance (LOK), the country’s new regulatory framework and gambling licensing system.
In a session on Tuesday (17 December), the Curaçao parliament approved the LOK gambling legislation by a majority of 13 to six.
Aideen Short, PR and marketing consultant for the GCB, labelled it a “great day for our industry” in a Linkedin post following the approval.
The next steps will be the governor signing the LOK into law, which will likely happen next week. The LOK will come into force from that date.
This means the LOK was passed by the Curaçao’s Gaming Control Board’s (GCB) Q4 2024 target, despite GCB managing director Cedric Pietersz previously telling iGB the regulator was facing delays due to a huge influx of licence submissions.
During 2024 budget discussions in Curacao’s parliament in December, Minister Silvania told the house the GCB had received thousands of online gambling licence applications so far.
He said 220 licences had already been granted and the GCB was expecting around 600 companies to receive authorisation by the end of Q1 2025. The budget was finalised and passed on 13 December.
What does the LOK aim to achieve?
The jurisdiction’s previous master licence system has been abolished under the new legislation, meaning current licences will expire once the legislation comes into force. All licensees have been asked to reapply under the new system.
One of the objectives of the LOK is to improve Curaçao’s reputation as a haven for grey market operators. Minister of finance Javier Silvania previously described the reforms as a “safety net” against unlicensed gambling operators.
The new system provides multiple application types for B2B, B2C and B2B2C operators. Pietersz said back in July the quality of applications he had seen at the time were not optimal as submissions were not up to the standard of the new regulation.
“A lot of applications get stopped when they reach our clarification process because documents are missing,” Pietersz said. “We have to send a lot of applications back, even during that first step and it means it’ll take even more time for us to process.”
GCB hits back at corruption allegations
In November, the GCB laid out part of its licensing process in a response to claims the new system was riddled with instances of corruption, fraud and money laundering.
The GCB said it has sole responsibility for processing and issuing licences.
“The GCB has the authority to grant, amend, suspend temporarily, revoke, or deny licences, as well as attach terms and conditions to licences,” the GCB said. “The allegation that the GCB lacks the legal authority to grant licences is therefore incorrect.”
