Greek gambling law facing European Commission opposition

Looks like the Greek government is going to have to wait a bit longer before they start  collecting the 700 million Euro in annual gambling tax revenues they estimate will flow from their regulated I-gaming market.

The European Commission (“EC”) yesterday issued a detailed opinion on the suitability of draft laws submitted to them on April 5…and it’s wasn’t a favourable one.  As it stands the draft is not consistent with EU law and would likely result in EC infringement proceedings if passed into law.

The EC listed a number of areas of concern including:

• the requirement for operators to have a bank guarantee from a bank established in Greece;
• the requirement for EU licensed operators to be established in Greece;
• the limit on the available number of licenses; and
• limiting financial transfers to only local banks or local branches of international banks.

The EC also applied an extension to the draft law’s ‘stand still’ period until August 8, meaning it cannot be passed into law before then.

So it’s back to the drawing board for Greek lawmakers.  In fact it was back to the drawing board before the opinion was even issued, as it was withdrawn for a secondary parliamentary review after concerns from some quarters of the government that it was too liberal.

Too liberal according to Greece.  Not liberal enough according to the EC.  Looks like we’re a long way of having a resolution with this one!

The EC opinion has been backed by key industry group the EGBA.  Secretary General Sigrid Ligné issued a statement on the EGBA website saying,

“We share the Commission’s assessment of the Greek draft regulation. The requirements in the current draft are highly questionable under EU law, and this begs the question as to how viable the future market will be for EU licensed operators”.

You can read the EC’s detailed opinion here.

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