The Madrid-based company Codere, leader in sports betting in Spain, has recently opened subsidiaries in Malta and Gibraltar for its online betting division. The most recent is the one based in the Rock and its creation is included in the latest accounts of the group: "On January 4, 2019, the Codere Gibraltar Marketing Services Limited company, belonging to the Online group, is incorporated in the United Kingdom," he explains.
The new subsidiary based in Gibraltar, whose activity is that of "provision of services", is located in a building known as Burns House, at number 19 of the Town Range, in the British colony. According to Codere sources, it is "a company created for the coordination, within the online business, of the group's marketing services at an international level, specially designed to ensure this coordination in the event that there is a development of licenses that allow us operate in foreign markets where Codere has no presence."
Three months before the creation of the new Gibraltarian subsidiary, on September 20, 2018, the Spanish multinational constituted two other subsidiaries in Malta, the European island that in recent years has consolidated with Gibraltar as a great pole of attraction for the gaming sector thanks to its low taxes.
Named Codere Online Operator LTD and Codere Online Management Services LTD and based in the Maltese town of Birkirkara, both subsidiaries are engaged in "remote gaming of any kind" and "allow, facilitate and assist in relation to those games." One of them exceeded 2.6 million euros in profit in its first full year of activity, as reflected in the group's accounts.
100% of its shares belong, like the new subsidiary domiciled in Gibraltar, to Servicios de Juego Online, SAU, a company based in the headquarters of the group in Alcobendas (Madrid) that was established in 2018.
Moving to Melilla
In Spain, Codere transferred to Melilla in October 2018 the subsidiary that holds the online betting operator license granted by the Government in 2012. Until then it was based in Madrid.
The objective with that move was to take advantage of the enormous fiscal advantages that the PP Government introduced in the 2018 Budgets to turn that autonomous city, together with Ceuta, into a kind of fiscal semi-paradise for gaming companies.
This measure was aimed at attracting online gaming operators licensed in Spain that until then were based in territories such as Gibraltar or Malta. But that tax benefit has failed: a year and a half after its entry into force and after having completed Brexit (the event that was supposed to attract these two autonomous cities gaming companies based in the Rock), the majority of operators who have taken advantage of it are Spanish firms.
Source: eldiario.es
