Stanleybet Group has announced that it will expand into the Spanish retail betting market, launching its initial operations in the autonomous province of Andalusia.
The heritage European gambling group has obtained a Spanish retail betting licence, and secured further Andalusian rights to open its first shop venue in the city of Malaga – expected to take place by the first quarter of 2023.
Group CEO Giovanni Garrisi revealed that Spain had been touted as “Stanleybet’s next destination” prior to the global pandemic.
“We had started the process for obtaining the license already in 2019”, Garrisi explained.
“The pandemic event inevitably slowed down the procedures. In the meantime, we continued to dialogue with the Andalusian authorities to complete the process once everything returned to normal.”
Garrisi cited confidence that Stanleybet will shake up Spain’s fragmented retail betting market, which has seen local incumbents such as Codere, Sportium, Orenes and EGASA have dominated within different provinces.
“Andalusia represents an extremely vast market with a very high development potential,” Garrisi added.
“We will start from Malaga, where we are already working on the opening of the first shop, scheduled for the first quarter of 2023, and then continue in the other cities.”
Entry into Spain will represent Stanleybet’s eighth European B2C jurisdiction, in which the heritage operator claims to operate the continent’s largest retail network spanning the UK, Denmark, Cyprus, Italy, Belgium and Romania.
“Our business model, already successfully applied in other countries, such as Belgium and Cyprus, includes both types because we believe that flexibility is one of the factors that have led us to succeed in various markets,” said Antonio Stanzani, Stanleybet Country Manager for Spain.
“Our first shop will be a ‘tienda de apuestas’, to imprint and export our style also in Andalusia, but we are already in contact with several Spanish entrepreneurs who have chosen Stanleybet to start thriving and lasting partnerships in the betting and gaming industry, in which we have been a leader since 1958.”
2023 will see Spain implement federal reforms to the Gambling Law, requiring new player and consumer safeguards.
Headline objectives include the creation of a federal gambling self-exclusion registry for online and land-based gambling, approved last summer by the regional governments of autonomous communities.
Source: SBC News
