Isle of Man

Overview

A reputable i-gaming location and OECD tier-one jurisdiction, the Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown Dependency. It has a population of about 80,000 and is not a part of the EU although it has a limited status with the EU covering the free movement of goods. The island is about 32km long and 22km wide at its maximum and has a total area of 572sq.km. Its parliament is known as the Tynwald.

More than 40 i-gaming licences are currently live on the Isle of Man from companies based all over the world and housed in several data centres located around the island.

ICT infrastructure is world class with leading-edge fixed and mobile telecoms networks, numerous disaster recovery and hosting facilities and highly resilient bandwidth connectivity.

What sets the Isle of Man apart from other jurisdictions is the government’s level of commitment to the ongoing development of the i-gaming sector and its ability to develop relationships with other jurisdictions to support the global expansion of its operators. Its can-do attitude has encouraged a growing network of i-gaming businesses and software development companies to operate from the Isle of Man.

The establishment of the Isle of Man on the OECD white list in 2009 was a stamp of approval for the jurisdiction and was followed by white list accreditation from the UK government, offering access to the British market for the i-gaming companies.

Licences

Network services licence:
A holder can provide network services to other operators whether based on the Isle of Man or elsewhere. The licence fee is £50,000 per annum plus £5,000 for each non-Isle of Man business customer. A holder can also offer the same business to consumer services as a standard licence holder.

Standard licence: A holder can provide games and services to consumers and sub-licences to businesses. The yearly fee is £35,000.

Sub-licence:
For companies with an exclusive B2B relationship with an Isle of Man licence holder the yearly fee is £5,000.

There is a one-off, non-refundable fee of £5,000 which is payable upon submission of any of the licence application documents.

Services

There is a dedicated support and development team within economic development which works closely with the industry and the regulator to ensure the environment continues to support the sector. They can provide hands-on assistance throughout the entire process and take an active interest in support business to grow after licensing.

Peripheral activities such as disaster recovery, software downloads and marketing can be hosted in the Isle of Man without any need for licensing.

Generous grant assistance available.

Protection of players’ funds by law.

Proactive commercial support from government.

Fast 10-12 weeks licensing process.

Advanced telecommunications infrastructure which has been used as a test bed for emerging technologies.

Bandwith: A wide range of SLA-guaranteed internet bandwidth, private circuit and MPLS connectivity solutions are available and provided over two resilient fibre optic rings and one point-to-point cable.

Tax

Corporation tax on the Isle of Man is zero per cent.

Gaming duty is payable by licensed gaming operators on gross gaming profit or retained profit (as in the case of p2p games, exchanges and lotteries).

Gambling Duty is paid at the following rate per annum:

On the first £20m of profit, 1.5 percent duty is payable

On the next £20m of profit, 0.5 percent duty is payable

On any amount in excess of the first £40m 0.1 percent duty is payable

Maximum rate of personal income tax of 20 per cent capped at £125,000 maximum payable per annum.

Contact

Peter Greenhill, CEO e-Gaming Development
T: +44 (0)1624 686395

E: [email protected]

Ray Davies, e-Gaming Development
T: +44 (0)1624 686365

E: [email protected]

e-Gaming Development Team, Isle of Man government
T: +44 (0)1624 682307

E: via whereyoucan.com/about/contact

W: www.whereyoucan.com/egaming

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