Virgin Bet went live earlier this week, aiming to “disrupt the UK market.” The sports betting website’s parent company recently obtained a license from Gibraltar authorities, a move the territory, located at the bottom of the Spanish coast, considered a sign of confidence in its future status as a popular gambling hub.

Gamesys Group’s Gibraltar office currently employs more than 50 people. The company launched Virgin Bet through a “landmark agreement” with gambling technology provider SBTech, which supplied the platform that powers the brand new betting operation.

Virgin Bet’s name comes from Virgin Games, a subsidiary of businessman Richard Branson’s Virgin Group which Gamesys purchased in 2013. Last year, Gamesys hailed the performance of its B2C Virgin Games business as one of the main drivers of growth in annual revenues.

Confidence in Gibraltar

The Government of Gibraltar congratulated Gamesys on the successful application of its license from local regulators and the launch of the Virgin Bet brand. It also noted that Gibraltar being “the only jurisdiction which has guaranteed market access to the UK” after Brexit was the factor that prompted the launch of the new operation.

Albert Isola, Minister for Commerce of Gibraltar, told local media that the territory will remain a “leading jurisdiction from which to operate a remote gambling business” and that a large number of existing operators remain committed to Gibraltar “despite Brexit challenges.”

Minister Isola’s comments came just several weeks after bet365 announced its relocation to Malta due to the uncertainties stemming from the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Heading to Malta

Despite previously denying reports about its relocation, bet365 finally confirmed last month that it would scale down its Gibraltar operation and would relocate most of its business to Malta, citing Brexit concerns.

The online gambling powerhouse told its Gibraltar staff that as part of its

“strategic contingency plans to ensure EU market access and to maintain and enhance operational efficiencies, we have been building our presence in Malta and operating a dual regulator and licensing strategy between Gibraltar and Malta for a number of years.”

Its statement went on:

“from an operational and technical perspective and given our operating model, it has become increasingly challenging to efficiently run […] multisite operations and this has necessarily resulted in us conducting a review of our operations.”

Gibraltar media outlets reported that most of bet365’s staff located in the British Overseas Territory will be offered a position at the company’s expanding Malta base or the chance to accept redundancy. Local news outlet the Olive Press reported citing an unnamed “well-placed bet365 source” that employees were given eight weeks to decide on whether they wanted to move to Malta.

Responding to the operator’s announcement that it would reduce its Gibraltar presence, the Government of the territory said that bet365’s decision was “directly related to Brexit and not to any other matter otherwise related to Gibraltar.”

However, members of opposition party GSD voiced concerns that the relocation would result in 500 jobs leaving Gibraltar and would have a “knock-on effect on the local economy.”