MM: Susan you’re working in the more mature UK market where you have had B2B licensing for a while. What is your opinion here? Is it efficient to have the B2B suppliers regulated? SB: I think the UK has it about right on this particular topic. People may say that the UK doesn’t have a lot right with its industry at the moment for all sorts of reasons, some of which were alluded to earlier, but as a mature market, I think the balance works with the current B2B licensing regime. In very short order, you have licenses available for gambling software, you have licenses for hosting - games, bingo casino, betting - and you have an intermediary license, effectively an exchange. There are no license requirements on affiliates for similar reasons to Vanessa’s argument, that affiliates are subject to their own requirements. In the UK, the ASA requires compliance with the CAP code, so they have their own rulebook and they would not be expected to comply with a second rulebook. There is probably a hybrid situation with white labels which are subject to a license / licensed architecture. Licensees are effectively within the license network, but they are allowed to promote the brands of a third party licensed operator. So it is a mechanism by which B2B businesses outside the UK with no UK license can promote their brand under the umbrella of a white label. Now that hybrid has come in for a lot of scrutiny in the last 12 to 18 months. There has been much debate about whether that system works and the Gambling Commission and indeed the White Paper have raised questions about bad practices within the entire white label community, and whether this is something that should be outlawed. The net effect right now is that all they are requiring, in terms of the Gambling Commission’s guidance, is that there is a refreshed and re-consolidated look by operators, the B2Cs in relation to the way they deal with their third-party providers, but not that the white label structure is outlawed. So, the license has this kind of hybrid at its heart, the Gambling Commission and indeed the White Paper and the government would say that the focus is very much on the operator: they’re seen as the gatekeeper, save for critical supply components like software and hosting. MM: Peter, what does it look like in the Netherlands? That’s a less mature market, obviously, but are licenses required or possible? PPG: There are no requirements for B2B providers to be licensed and they don’t fall under the regulatory oversight of the Dutch gambling authority, the KSA. The operators that buy services from these B2B providers are fully responsible to ensure that B2B providers keep within the regulations and are fully compliant. The onus is on the operators to ensure that the B2B providers they are working with are squeaky, clean. The market opened on October 1st, 2021, so we’re almost two years in. But on the side of B2B self-regulation, I think we have seen some green shoots. Like I said, I’m on the advisory board of this quality brands organization, which is an industry initiative from the B2B sector, mostly affiliates, trying to keep their sector clean, which I think was absolutely necessary when the market opened. A number of affiliates were doing business with anyone that wanted to do business. A lot of the online advertising for unlicensed websites took place through these affiliates. So, there was a definite need to clean this up. And they set up this quality mark, which seems to be working fairly well, I must say. MM: But there must be affiliates that are not part of this. PPG: Yes, of course, you cannot be forced to join. I think the KSA the regulator is looking with a lot of interest into what is happening there. I think they see this positively. MM: Does the KSA have authority to go after an affiliate or other service provider? PPG: Affiliates that break the law can be prosecuted by the KSA. But I think it’s good. And what you see is that the number of affiliates that have gone for this quality mark is increasing. It’s still increasing, there are still sign ups by new affiliates on a weekly basis. And I think they’re expanding into other markets as well. I think they’re also expanding into the UK where they set up the quality mark for marketing affiliates, QMRA or something similar it is called. I know they’re also looking to expand into Germany and other markets. I’m not sure whether we would need B2B licensing in the Netherlands. At this stage, I would say let’s wait and see how things pan out. I’m also puzzled by the move in Sweden to move to a licensing duty for B2B providers. What was the reason for that?
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