Alderney Jurisdiction

Alderney is a self governing British dependency, located in the north of the Channel Islands between Britain and France. Despite being only 3 miles long, it is still the third largest island in the English Channel and Alderney has their own government and laws. 

In the last few years, Alderney has succeeded to become a world-class eGambling jurisdiction, with strict conditions of license, well-defined technical and operational requirements, rigorous due diligence investigations of license's applicants and continual monitoring of licensees' operations.

Alderney Online Gambling License is issued by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) that regulates eGambling on behalf of the States of Alderney. The AGCC was founded in May of 2000 under The Gambling (Alderney) 1999. The Alderney Gambling Commission voted on February 28, 2005 to allow a "free market approach towards e-gambling." This decision allows the jurisdiction’s licensees to accept bets from players in all other countries, including the United States.

Primarily the Alderney eGambling legislation consists of three pieces of legislation, namely:

• The Gambling (Alderney) Law, 1999, as amended
• The Alderney eGambling Ordinance, 2009
• The Alderney eGambling Regulations, 2009.

Being licensed by AGCC has several important economic advantages. First of all, companies established for the purposes of holding an Alderney eGambling License may qualify for tax-exempt status in which case they do not pay income tax but pay a minimal non profit related fixed annual fee instead. Secondly, there is no VAT or other Sales tax applicable on Alderney. What is more, there is no tax or other duties payable on gambling operations.

AGCC issues four main types of gambling licenses:

• Full eGambling license
• Associate certificate
• Hosting certificate
• Restricted use eGambling license

The holder of the Alderney full eGambling license has all the rights to run online gambling business and proceed gambling transactions including all kinds and forms of gaming, betting and lottery participation.

The license issuing process is carried out in two phases. The first phase is license application. It is a multi-step process, involving registering a company in Alderney, issuing the application Notice, application documents submitting. In addition an applicant’s business plan will be evaluated. The investigation process also includes careful estimation of corporate entities, software providers and management executives. The second phase, usually conducted simultaneously, includes evaluation and approval of the provided documents. On this phase third party experts can be involved in the process.

Current full eGambling license annual fee equals to £70,000 GBP. The costs of initial investigations should also be covered by the applicant’s side.

AGCC is empowered to establish full control over the licensee’s online gambling business operations. The main control issue is online players’ protection. In this respect the commission will investigate gamblers’ complaints and check the precautions taken in order to prevent underage gambling.
 

Alderney Gambling Control Commission
St. Anne's House
Queen Elizabeth II Street
Alderney, Channel Islands