Alderney Gambling Control Commission

The island community of Alderney is an autonomous self-governing entity situated off the coast of the United Kingdom; similar in establishment to the Isle of Man, Alderney is able to establish its own tax laws and has its own legislative body but relies on the UK for representation abroad and for military protection.

Long known as a tax haven, Alderney has developed itself into a welcoming home for online gaming and gambling operators looking to benefit from the tax breaks and also the burden of regulation that is sweeping other jurisdictions. The UK Gambling Commission has Alderney listed on its White List which has highly important repercussions for operators choosing to base themselves there.

The White List is an approved list of non-UK gambling jurisdictions which is used to determine whether an operator can advertise their services in the UK; if you are an operator located in a White List territory then you can advertise your casino or website but if you are not situate in a White List territory then you may not. The White List prevented online casinos from accepting play due to recent legislation enacted in September 2008; suddenly, notable gaming jurisdictions suddenly found their operators could not promote themselves in the UK which severely curtailed their businesses and led to fears that their gaming economy would collapse - Alderney as one of only three non European Economic Area jurisdictions to be on the White List (Tasmania and the Isle of Man being the other two) suddenly found itself in the position of being able to offer operators a major competitive advantage if they based themselves there.

Practically, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission was created in 2000 due to the enactment of The Gambling (Alderney) Law 1999 and in 2006, a new set of provisions was enabled to deal with the issuance of e-licenses to cover online poker, casino, lottery and sports book type operations. There is an annual fee of GBP 70,000 and the operator applying for the licence must bear the cost of all investigations which need to be carried out to demonstrate suitability and fitness to hold the licence which requires a deposit of GBP 10,000 to be lodged with the Commission. All gaming systems are required to submit to and pass compliance testing which falls to the account of the licensee.

A further development was the 2006 introduction of Restricted Use eGambling licenses which allow the use of mirrored sites within the Alderney jurisdiction while the main part of the operation is actually located elsewhere. This allows operators to establish facilities which can provide resiliency in the event of disaster (so called disaster recovery in IT terms) and also provide an insurance against legislative restrictions being imposed on the jurisdiction where the main operation is actually situated. The operator simply needs to pay a daily licensing fee whenever they require to utilize their Alderney based resources and they may also convert to an eGambling Licence if they need to operate for an extended period of time.

One particular point to note is that Alderney operators are able to accept bets from players within the United States where online gaming is effectively outlawed. The Alderney Gambling Commission voted in 2005 to accept that a free market approach to the development of the gaming industry was to be followed and that the extra territorial nature of the ban on online gaming by the United States was ineffective in the Alderney jurisdiction.