In addition to the toughening of the ‘anti smoking law’ which comes into force on 1st January next year, the other main topics for analysis and debate during the Congress were unfair competition from on-line gaming and the fiscal pressures on the private gaming sectors.. Among the senior politicians who attended was the Deputy Counsellor of the Department of the Interior in the Basque Government, Raúl Fernández de Arroiabe, who reiterated his Administration’s commitment to this group and again told of the difficulties encountered within the Basque Administration due to the current absence of standards governing on-line gaming. In his welcome speech, the President of COFAR, Manuel Lao Hernández, stressed the difficulties encountered in facing up to this scenario with a set of standards that show no sensitivity towards a group that is generating wealth directly. In the first address, the Secretaries of the Basque Associations highlighted the new features contained in the new Basque Regulations. In the second “Businessmen against the crisis”, the managers of the machine, bingo and casino sectors analysed the present situation in depth and demanded improvements in order to be able to confront the present crisis. In the next address, “The future today”, experts in gaming, both playing on a machine and playing online, debated the possibilities offered by the new technologies and the threats from the state lottery monopolies. Lastly there was an open forum at which the people responsible for gaming in the different Autonomies participated, chaired by Eduardo Antoja, Ex-president of Euromat and Vice-president of COFAR, in which for the first time since their appointment the Directors General responsible for Gaming in Andalucia, Manuel Brenes, and in the Basque Country, Sonia Fernandez, were present.

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