EU Commission launches public consultation process into online gambling

The European Commission (“EC”) have announced that tomorrow they will begin a public consultation process into online gambling services throughout the EU. The announcement was made in this press release on the European Union’s official website.

The stated intent of the process is to:

“…exhaust a number of questions related to the effects of, and to the possible public policy answers to, the development of online gambling activity in order to have a full picture of the existing situation, to facilitate the exchange of best practices between Member States and to determine if the differing national regulatory models for gambling can continue to coexist and whether specific action may be needed in the EU for that purpose.”

Up until now the EC have tried to enforce Member States’ compliance with the EU single market doctrine using legal confrontation…with mixed results.  In some cases the European Court of Justice have ruled that national laws restricting cross-border online gambling are illegal. In others, such restrictions have been deemed acceptable provided they serve a ‘public interest’.

Approaches to online gambling regulation throughout Europe remain very inconsistent.

This consultation process is seen as the first EC attempt to open a real political dialogue on this issue.

Keen to have their say will be the online gambling operators desperately pushing for a unified approach to regulation EU-wide. Already weighing in on the announcement is Sigrid Ligne of the EGBA ,which represents the interests of companies including Unibet, Bwin and PartyGaming.  Ligne told reporters today that there was ‘need for an EU regulatory framework’.

Voices from the other side of the spectrum, national governments and their monopoly gambling operations wanting to preserve protectionist local laws, will no doubt be just as loud.

Details of the consultation process will be set out in a green paper to be released tomorrow.