Are Euro Governments Making “Patsy” of Commission?

This week Economist.com brought up quite a touchy subject among the Euro poker community and its bystanders — the crackdown on online gaming and gambling by various member states of the European Union, and the commission’s lack of control and input over this.

The news site says that a previous study found that seven of the EU’s 27 members prohibit online gambling, and only 13 of the other 20 have liberalised their markets, with the rest leaving the industry to be dominated by state monopolies.

The issue has caused a rift in the EU with many European countries coming down hard on Internet gambling (most likely taking their lead from America).

On the same note, the Netherlands’ sole legal online outlet for players and gamblers is De Lotto; and the same kind of approach occurs in Sweden where only online gaming provided by a national monopoly is allowed.

With many countries simply banning outside providers, it is hard to maintain the argument that the move has been made to benefit and protect the people. Leighton Vaughan Williams of the Betting Research Unit at Nottingham Business School says, “The policy of many of the EU member states towards online gambling seems to be motivated more by protection of the public purse than by protection of the public.”

Although the commission argues that EU members should be open to gambling firms from elsewhere, it has done little to ensure this is put into practice. France, Sweden, Greece, Denmark, Hungary, and the Netherlands have been simply told off, some countries have been threatened of legal proceedings, but the governments continue how they wish despite this, hence The Economist says they are making a “patsy” out of the commission.

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