The European Union recently approved a common position on the supervisory role of national gambling regulatory authorities.
This is the first ever real sign of progress on the supervision of the gambling sector, an industry worth some €80 billion a year in the EU which divides member states on the approach to be taken by the bloc to regulate the industry.
At the end of the last EU Competitiveness Council meeting for this year, ministers in Brussels unanimously adopted their first ever position on gambling taking into account the European Court of Justice case law that helps map out a sector that remains virtually a legal vacuum.
The council is “aware that member states face different cross-border problems and agrees that progress is possible to deal with them,” ministers said.
They also welcomed the European Commission’s announcement of a major consultation on online gambling in the internal market, which will allow in-depth discussion of the issues raised.
Ministers also agreed to work on practical measures to improve cross-border cooperation between national authorities given the cross-border nature of the different questions related to gambling and betting.
“The internal market information system could become a useful tool to facilitate such administrative cooperation,” the conclusions suggest. This will mean that supervisory authorities like the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Authority could, in the future, be able to share information about its clients with authorities in other EU member states.
The agreed text also acknowledges the contribution of state lotteries, recognises their usefulness and agrees that “their specific role should be taken into account in discussions at European level”.
Although these conclusions will not change anything yet of the current legislative regime, the consensus reached at ministerial level represents an important step forward for future discussions at EU level on the future of the industry, which will be steered by a green paper due out in February 2011. Currently, EU member states hold widely different views on gambling control and are now closer to start discussing the details of possible common rules for the industry.
Until now, Malta and the UK, considered to be the major players in the EU’s online betting industry, have always resisted the introduction of common rules and argue that the current general framework regulating the EU’s internal market is enough.
However, others, including Belgium, Denmark, Greece, France, Italy and Spain want stronger and specific rules for the sector aimed particularly at restricting online betting companies registered in other member states from penetrating their lucrative markets.
Currently, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain have wholly or partially state-owned monopolies for gambling while eight member states – Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Romania – ban online gambling altogether.
Malta was represented at this meeting by Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi.