DENMARK

Although the country’s online gaming market is being partly opened up to private firms, Danish national lottery operator Danske Spil will retain the exclusive right to offer lottery, bingo, keno, scratch-cards, and betting on horse races over the Internet.

EUROPE

Ladbrokes and Bet365 have joined Right2bet, the campaigning group that argues all European citizens should have access to all licensed betting operators. Other members include Betfair, Stanleybet and Victor Chandler.

GERMANY

The European Court of Justice has ruled that the state monopoly on sports betting in Germany is illegal because the same rules do not apply to casinos and slot machines.

IRELAND

The Irish Bookmakers’ Association (IBA) has warned that a third of the country’s 1200 outlets could be forced to shut if the government’s December budget review goes ahead with a proposed two percent tax on winnings. “Paradoxically, rather than strengthening the contribution of the betting sector to the Irish Exchequer this new taxation would have the opposite effect,” said chairwoman Sharon Byrne.

The government believes it could raise €60bn annually through the winnings tax and by extending the current one percent tax on gambling turnover to online operators. The betting shops argue that they would have to absorb the winnings tax in order to retain customers, but that many would find this unsustainable, having experienced declines in turnover of as much as 40 percent over the past two years. The association has proposed a new licensing tax as an alternative.

NETHERLANDS

Like Denmark, the Netherlands is reserving many kinds of online betting for its existing monopoly lottery operator. Private companies will be permitted to offer Internet poker – it is understood that the government believed authorising just a single poker operator would be insufficient to stop the use of unlicensed sites – but only De Lotto will have the right to run online casino games, bingo and sports betting.

Said Remote Gambling Association Chief Executive Clive Hawkswood: “It would be churlish of us not to welcome the poker opening, if it is granted in a viable way, but it appears as an opportunity missed for other segments. If consumer protection rather than market protectionism is the real policy objective then this recommendation should embrace other areas.”

PHILIPPINES

Operators of the Philippines’ Small Town Lotteries are hugely under-reporting gross sales to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office which oversees them, according to former archbishop Oscar Cruz. He said they may be concealing as much as half of their takings. National police supremo Raul Bacalzo has ordered a crackdown on all kinds of illegal gambling, including the numbers game jueteng, said to be worth 37bn pesos (€600m) annually.

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa has banned online gaming. Not only operators, but also players, Internet service providers, media that advertise gaming Websites, and firms such as banks that handle gambling-related transactions can be punished with fines of up to 10m rand (€1m) and prison sentences of up to ten years, as well as being excluded from applying for online gaming licences when they are introduced.

SPAIN

New gambling legislation in Spain allows poker, casino games and sports betting both online and on mobile platforms. Although the country’s autonomous communities are responsible for gaming regulation, the central government said that the cross-border nature of online means a nationwide approach is needed.

A new regulatory body will be established, with significant representation from the autonomous communities, and they will also receive a substantial share of gaming tax revenue.

UK

Britain’s Gambling Commission has reminded venue operators that machines offering games of chance such as roulette, bingo or poker are gaming machines and not Skill with Prizes machines (SWPs). Saying that it “keeps a close eye on the boundary” between the two types, it is investigating suppliers that offer machines to clubs, pubs and arcades as SWPs when they are in fact gaming machines.

The Gambling Commission added that operators should “take particular care over machines with prizes above £50 as, if not quiz machines, they are more likely to be gaming machines”.

The body is also considering making changes to the annual and quarterly regulatory returns that it requires from companies in the gaming sector. It is looking at “changes to the types of data the regulatory returns collect and whether the questions asked represent a proportionate and appropriate information request”, and seeks comments by 3 November.

A separate review of the Gambling Commission’s rules on casino games has a deadline for comments of 24 November.

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