My company hosts Curacao based licensed casinos - ask me anything

[chateaux]

Hello all,

I thought I would start a Q/A thread with regards to running and operating online casinos from Curacao. We have been in the business since 2002 and moved our operation to Curacao in 2006.

We offer the following services:

1. Gambling Licensing
2. Gambling Webhosting
3. Game aggregation

I can answer questions with regards to setting up your bitcoin casinos, what it will cost, what regulations apply and what process you will need to follow in order to become a regulated entity.

You can find more information on our hosting website here: https://curacaowebhosting.com and our gambling service here https://gamblingtec.com

Our services are aimed at assisting startup casinos as well as supporting game developers who want to get into the casino space.

[tokeweed]

If you deal entirely in crypto, is there really a need to be regulated?  I mean look at some of the altcoin exchanges...  There are some of them, like Bittrex, that operate without any license, and yet they could get away with it.  Or even the darknet markets for instance...  No business license.

And wouldn't it be better to start a Tor based Bitcoin casino to circumvent the need for licenses?

[chateaux]

Licensing is about jurisdiction.

So if you operate without a license and accept purely Bitcoin and perhaps have a DAO as the underlying organisation. It is unlikely anyone is going to make a claim against you. If your casino is hosted in Curacao, with us, no one is going to think twice about it since we host casinos and it would not be unusual for your casino to be on our servers.

Essentially what this boils down to is trust.

Are you more likely to send your BTC to a licensed casino or to an unlicensed one?

1. As a licensed casino, your company appears on the local chamber of commerce, and if your customers have a problem with something, there is recourse.
2. Running a nameless casino on Tor is unlikely to be as successful as option 1 since no one knows who the people behind it are and who to make a claim against should something go wrong.

In answer to your question, if no one can show jurisdiction over you and your Bitcoin casino, you can pretty much do as you please.

[audaciousbeing]

This services you are offering is one thing that have caused a lot of people to be in dilemma about several questions about the legality of bitcoin enabled gambling site while those who have the names already won't disclose where they got the legal backing to run such services?

My question is that, does the country recognise bitcoin as a means to exchange for it to be in a dominated gambling site. The reason is that there is difference between online gambling site and another one whose currency is crypto.

Another question is aside the license what other cost are required like returns, payments, reports and their timeliness? Again is there a room to get the license without actually operating in that country?

[chateaux]

In general, there are no specific laws for or against it in most jurisdictions. The main reason that casinos obtain licensing is that without it they can not obtain merchant processing/bank accounts etc. With bitcoin, you do all this yourself without third parties getting involved so in many instances, there is little motivation to obtain the license.

Even if you do not need a license, it would be worth getting one in order to give your business a degree of legitimacy and to prevent potential future issues.

In answer to your first question:
Does Curacao recognise Bitcoin? It does not recognise it as a "fiat currency" however since you can use it to accept wagers, the license will cover BTC related casinos should the applicant wish to operate such.

Costs associated with the license (approximates):

1. Incorporation fees (once off) - €6500
2. Managment fees (Annual) - €4000
3. Gaming application fee (once off) - €1000
4. Annual license fee - €4500
5. Hardware costs (you need to own infrastructure) - €800 - 3500
6. E-Zone fees (E-Zone companies pay 2% tax) - €250 annual/application fee.
7. Hosting costs (€450/month)
8. Administration services €3000 + per annum

Other costs

1. If you have written your own games, you will require RNG certification - expect to pay around €2500 - €3500 for this.

The costs above is more or less what we can set you up at, there are other providers who charge a premium though (licensing for instance at €12k).

Not all startups can afford the above and this is the reason we created https://www.gamblingtec.com which allows our clients to piggyback off our infrastructure. A Gtec casino has the following costs:

1. License fee (€4000 per annum - your domain is added to our license)
2. Hosting fee (from €95 per month - depending on resources required)
3. Management fee (€450 per month)
4. Setup fee - €1000 (covers contracts etc.)
5. If you require RNG, we have a way to reduce this cost to €400 (but means using 3rd party APIs)

NOTE: Costs assume you do not require plugging into our platform which is a different ball game.