An island based gaming expert believes there would be ’minimal’ financial loss to the island if gambling giant GVC Holdings was to move out.

GVC has announced it would be holding a vote next month to decide whether it will relocate the governance and tax residency of the company away from the island.

GVC’s registered office is in Athol Street, Douglas.

The business is a holding company with many brands to its name including bwin, Coral, Ladbrokes, Sportingbet, partypoker and Foxy Bingo.

As reported in this week’s Examiner, the company has announced it will hold an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on February 6 in Gibraltar to consider a proposal to relocate out of the Isle of Man.

Warwick Bartlett, chief executive of Castletown based Global Betting and Gaming Consultants (GBGC) told Business News he believes that ’GVC’s loss to the Isle of Man in financial terms is minimal due to the low head count here’.

Mr Bartlett, who analyses the global gaming industry, said it was hard to second guess the reasons presented to a board of a company of this size and how they have reached the conclusions that they have.

He said: ’If you ask me to speculate then one has to look at the direction of travel for offshore enterprises.’

He added that GVC appears to have no commercial activity in the Isle of Man and employs few people here.

’My guess is they had a choice between taking on larger premises and employing more people or moving the corporate head office back to the UK.

’The last General Election now provides a lot more clarity for the next five years for all businesses that have substantial investments in the UK.’

To his knowledge GVC has never been licensed to operate any gaming sites in the Isle of Man.