Kindred Group withdraws Spanish licence application - (2026)

by Luke Andrews, 20 July 2019

The Kindred Group has recently withdrawn the license for their Spanish partners. With the majority of their stakeholders drawing upon the European license that is set into European law. The firm has decided that the pursuit of the Spanish license is not viable, and have re-focused their resources onto the US and Swedish market.

Kindred Group missed out on a Spanish operators license. Pexels.

The Stockholm based firm has re-allocated the main bulk of their resources on the Swedish market, but also into the United States where they have launched a casino product under their brand Unibet. With these latest developments in the lifecycle of Kindred Group, it is no wonder that the efforts to win over the Spanish regulators have subdued. In a legal battle that was consuming valuable time and resources for the company, it is no wonder that they have abandoned the effort to set up shop in this part of the world.

Kindred has certainly made a successful betting brand when you consider the global reach of this company. But the reasons for the failure in Spain appear to be many, with strict and detailed legislation for opening a betting brand in Spain. With all of these loopholes to navigate through, it is a substantial task the acquisition team at Kindred have ahead of them if this latest venture will reap any rewards.

Despite the minor setbacks, they remain optimistic, as a Kindred spokesperson said:

Kindred remains fully committed to the Group’s strategic objective of increasing its revenue from locally-licensed markets and looks forward to revisiting its Spanish licence application once the process opens again.–Statement, Kindred Group

Many operators have received a license in Spain

Kindred will certainly feel hard done by, and missing out on the license to operate in Spain does come as a blow considering many of their competitors were able to secure such a license. The likes of Betfred and Casumo were awarded the license before the application window closed at the end of 2018. The Kindred Group will no doubt seek to make a second application once the window opens, with a permanent tech office in Madrid, the firm is well-positioned to enter this market and cause disruption.

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