Reservations expressed by Malta over Swedish EU gambling report

Malta has signalled its reservations on the conclusions of a progress report drawn up by the Swedish EU presidency on the gambling industry and how it should be regulated in the interest of consumers. A spokesman for the Maltese Lotteries and Gaming Authority told The Times Business that while the authority is pleased that the Swedish presidency tackled this subject with a specific reference to responsible gaming "it would like to make it quite clear that it views this progress report as expressing the views of the Swedish presidency and not of the EU as a whole."

"The LGA is of the opinion that the comments made in the report do not offer a concrete policy on responsible measures to be adopted," the spokesman said.

The "progress report" which will be presented to EU competitiveness ministers later this week in Brussels tackles the sensitive issue of regulating gambling in the member states.

While stressing the importance of respecting subsidiarity in this domain and therefore leaving the member states to decide for themselves, the Swedish government believes that the report will feed the debate at EU level about consumer protection and suggests the introduction of binding measures to encourage responsible gambling that can be taken by the member states or by the industry on a voluntary basis.

The measures include the setting of an age limit and checking the age of players, tightening registration criteria for online gambling and refusing to authorise gambling by promoting a healthy environment and limiting the number of slot machines in any one area.

Always on the lookout to make sure that individual member states do not use these suggestions to introduce monopolistic practices to stifle competition from on-line gambling, the LGA believes that the EU presidency report does not make reference to the fact that certain jurisdictions, including Malta, already operate an open and well-regulated market and several of the suggestions made in the report are in fact already catered for.

Asked on whether this report will have any impact on Malta's multi-million remote gaming industry, the LGA spokesman said that the Authority believes that this should not be the case.

"The LGA believes that a better regulatory regime is required so as to ensure adequate consumer protection, but government-run monopolies are not the solution to responsible gaming as this report seems to indicate," the spokesman said.

According to the Maltese gambling watchdog, an improvement of the standards could potentially be achieved by the European Commission continuing to enforce treaty provisions, member states completing reviews of their national legislation so as to be in line with the EU Treaty as well as an improved dialogue between regulators and the sector itself.

During the past years Malta has seen its remote gaming sector soaring as many international companies have decided to relocate to the island due to favourable fiscal and operational conditions.

It is estimated that Malta's gaming industry is currently the second largest in the EU employing thousands of employees and leaving millions of euros in the government's coffers each year.