Operators ready Green Paper responses

The consultation exercise on the European Commission’s Green Paper on online gambling in the internal market closed on Sunday 31 July. I picked up some gossip to the effect that the Commission had been disappointed with the number of responses received, but having spoken to various operators and other industry participants, it seems that many were finessing their submissions and were preparing to submit them at the last moment”¦or perhaps tapping them out on the laptop with a cold beer on the Costa, and seeing no need to hurry…

That said, I very much hope that the industry will respond strongly to the EC’s request for input because as Sigrid Line, the Secretary General of EGBA has pointed out, the mentality of it still seems far too country-specific and we need to see the industry as a whole pushing for a wider transfrontier harmonisation of regulation.

Of course, the ideal would be some sort of regulatory framework akin to those in place for telecommunications or pharmaceuticals ““ the idea being that once you demonstrated your propriety to conduct gambling, and agreed to interface with the tax authorities in any given Member State, observance of common EU regulation would exonerate you from the need to comply with any further onerous country-specific regulations.

For example, your EU “kitemark” would save you from having to open shops so that punters can come in and say hello to you before they play online”¦and other great ideas like that. The fact is that the European regulatory and licensing model is such a mess that any initiative that gives even a glimmer of hope of standardisation and communality should be eagerly supported.

It seems extraordinary to me that an operator regulated in ““ say ““ the Isle of Man ““ and already subject to the highest quality regulation, should be required to incur €8.7m (PWC’s number) in order to satisfy ARJEL of its propriety to hold a French licence”¦is that operator not starting from a squeaky-clean place already?

As I mentioned in my last blog, Jenny Williams of the UK Gambling Commission, has got the idea and has taken the eminently sensible approach that operators who are already responsibly regulated will not have to reinvent the regulatory wheel in order to pass muster with the UK Gambling Commission, once the UK finally legislates for a national licensing model. That has to be common sense and is an approach Europe should look at.

A set of European standards ““ such as those suggested by the European standards body CEN on 24 February 2011 ““ would be helpful not just in making life easier and cheaper for operators engaged across different EU markets but would also help consumers.

I see the benefit to consumers coming in two ways ““ firstly, those jurisdictions with less rigorous regulation could be brought up to a gold standard and, secondly, those jurisdictions which still retain quirks and business-unfriendly regulations designed to hinder private operators and aid ex-state monopolies, could be shown up.

ECJ jurisprudence does not allow for prohibition to be dressed up as regulation and poor regulation only ever serves to drive consumers to the black market. Let’s hope that the Green Paper responses lead to more momentum in the Commission’s inclination to standardise.