EGBA Renews Call For Harmonized European Regulation

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The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) has once again iterated the need for a common regulatory mechanism. This call has come ahead of the expected Communication and Action Plan on online gambling scheduled to be released later this month by the European Commission (EC). It is an attempt to pressurize the Commission into preparing a more cohesive and player-protective action plan that ensures a crime free environment throughout Europe. Sigrid Ligne, Secretary General of EGBA, deplored the situation of there being 27 mini-markets for online gambling in Europe. She demanded the introduction of European rules that afforded open, fair and transparent licensing conditions for EU-regulated operators.

The EGBA has come down hard on the situation in Germany and said that some of its members have lodged formal complaints with the EC against the new German gambling regime based on grounds of its incompatibility with the EU treaty. In his June 2012 speech to the European Parliament the head of the EC, Michele Barnier, had made a clear commitment to ensure that national regimes are in conformity with the EU Treaty. Ligne urged the EC to attend to this complaint urgently since the German states were in the process of allocating licenses based on a highly contentious tendering procedure. The EGBA has collected evidence to demonstrate that this tendering procedure is not an open, fair and transparent Europe-wide call for bids.

Ligne pointed out though Germany is a critical case, the situation is worsening in a number of jurisdictions. Several countries are proceeding with legislation that is easily highly questionable under EU law. The EC has to reactivate the dormant cases in a time bound frame work and has to take rapid action against new offenders otherwise certain Member States will continue to do as they please with impunity. Ligne reminded the EC that there are currently nine infringement procedures on hold, and many more new complaints have been lodged.

The EGBA believes that the ultimate solution to this problem is an overarching EU legislation for online gambling. This already exists in almost all other online services. The legislation will have to regulate both market access and consumer protection issues. Common consumer protection standards have been largely agreed upon in a workshop and have been published in 2011 by the European Committee for Standardization. These will have to be incorporated along with common technical standards and reporting tools and common licensing requirements. Finally Ligne asks, “Can the Commission afford to sit back and ignore an online industry which is set to grow from €8.5 billion in 2010 to €13 billion in 2015?”

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