A Sportingbet spokesman confirmed to Casino Choice that: “Customers are in the process of being blocked from all our domains”, including Miapuesta.com, Miapuesta.es and Sportingbet.es, which currently points to Miapuesta.com.

The operator also reiterated its statement made earlier this month to Casino Choice that its licence application in Spain would be unaffected by the court ruling, and that following regular meetings with the Spanish Gaming Regulator, Sportingbet expects to be granted its licence on or before 25 May 2012. Sportingbet has around 20% of the Spanish sports betting market, which generated 9.4% of its revenue in the last half year to 31 January.

The operator said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange this afternoon that it believed the injunction was based on erroneous information presented to the court by Codere, calling it “a blatant attempt to disrupt the market in the run up to the issue of licences.” The operator is appealing the shutdown of its websites for a potentially damaging two-month period ahead of its licence being issued at the end of May, stating that it had received advice Codere’s claim had no legal basis, as evidenced by the rejection of Codere’s applications by all other courts in Spain.

Codere has lost legal actions against bwin and PokerStars, in the latter case a Barcelona court ruling that the poker room could not be penalised for failing to apply for licences that didn’t exist at the time.

In more positive news for Sportingbet, the operator has now made its final payment of US$6m to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, as part of a US$33m (£21.3m) settlement for its activities in the US prior to passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in late 2006. Chief executive Andrew McIver said the payment closed off any risk the company may have faced from its previous US activities, and that it was reviewing various opportunities to re-enter the market, pending enabling regulation.