Being the new kid on the block has its advantages and Jersey presented a compelling case when iNTERGAMINGi investigated on a three-day trip to the island in summer 2011.
Although still currently waiting to be white-listed, Jersey is working on attracting the online gambling companies seeking new licences and a safe harbour for their servers in a tax neutral location and a quality of lifestyle, which will suit their on-site management.
New to i-gaming it might be, but Jersey has a considerable global reputation. It is indisputably the leading offshore financial services centre in the world. That means that some of the most reputable legal and financial companies have a base there and that countless wealthy individuals and corporations take advantage of its competitive tax regime.
For online gambling companies wishing to locate or even re-locate there, Jersey ticks a great many boxes: No corporate taxes, no gambling taxes and personal tax for any management relocated to the island of just 20 per cent.
It has taken the island nearly 10 years to go through a number of stop-start processes to open its door to online gambling companies, but now that it has, the team which brought that process to fruition is setting out its shop window in a way which is bound to catch the eye. The island’s business community appears to consider itself late into the market, but in reality the global market in internet gambling has a long way to go to reach maturity. It might therefore be prudent to replace ‘late’ with ‘later’ and by being later the island can offer the newest set of regulations. And that means everything everyone else has offered, plus some elements of its own.
The door, as they say in Jersey, is ‘open for business’ and presents a compelling case.
This report was first published in the Summer 2011 issue of iNTERGAMINGi magazine.
