Regulation round-up 15 January 2013
The biggest regulatory news from the egaming industry in the last seven days (9 January to 15 January 2013).
Dutch regulator calls egaming summit
Operators receive invite to meeting in The Hague to continue consultation on egaming regulations.
The Dutch regulator has invited international companies interested in becoming licensed in the country’s future egaming market to take part in a consultation meeting in The Hague later this month.
In a meeting scheduled for 28 January, the Netherlands Gaming Authority (NGA) will bring together a select group of companies to discuss how best they should regulate online gambling.
Recipients of the letter, signed by NGA board member Dr Paul Tang, must respond to a number of questions before attending. The questions focus on the key aspects what they perceive as an acceptable tax rate, how many licences they would expect to be handed out, and how player ID verification should be managed.
The meeting is another step forward from the regulator, which confirmed its intentions to legalise egaming in the country in October last year. It is understood members of the NGA, along with government officials working on the matter, have also held fact-finding discussions with fellow European regulators.
The country’s new coalition government confirmed plans to begin issuing egaming licences before the end of its current term in October, with leaders Mark Rutte and Diederik Samson claiming a tax rate of 29% of GPT would raise 31m per annum as part of wider-ranging anti-austerity measures in the European Union member state. However it is widely agreed that this rate “ currently applied to land-based gaming “ is likely to be lowered.
ARJEL announces latest sports betting restrictions
Restrictions on handball and volleyball wagering come after similar legislation for football and basketball “ PMU request to offer odds on women’s football rejected by regulator.
French regulator L’Autorité de régulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL) has updated its list of sporting competitions on which bookmakers are banned from offering odds, with handball and volleyball the latest to have restrictions imposed.
The changes, which are similar to those introduced for football and basketball in December last year, ban customers from placing bets on ‘irrelevant’ matches, as in games which have no impact on whether a team qualifies for European competition, wins the league, or is promoted or relegated from their divison. Punters are also banned from betting on matches where each team’s league position will not change regardless of the result.
France’s top two men’s volleyball leagues “ Ligue A and B “ are affected alongside the women’s Ligue A, while the country’s top two male handball leagues “ Championnat Division 1 and 2 “ and women’s top division are also subject to the new legislation.
Bets placed on handball are also subject to further restrictions, with punters no longer able to place bets on the team winning each half, which team will score the most goals in a half, and the number of scorers per team per match. Meanwhile, bets on the top scorer of a league are to be suspended three days before the end of a season.
As with the restrictions on football and basketball, the changes are designed to safeguard players against gambling addiction, and preserve integrity in sport by presenting fewer opportunities for match fixing.
New Nevada law would allow interstate poker
Legislation could boost player liquidity while federal regulation is off the agenda.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board (GCB) chairman AG Burnett has today claimed it is “paramount” that State Governor Brian Sandoval can choose whether to allow Nevada to take wagers from other states.
The GCB submitted a draft bill to the state legislature last month proposing the legalisation of bets taken from other states that have regulated egaming.
With a total population of little more than 2.7 million, there is limited scope for high liquidity in the Nevada intrastate poker market, but the ability to enter compacts with other states could help to significantly boost player numbers.
Burnett, who has also called for “federal acceptance” of online poker, argued that Assembly Bill 5 could be important for Nevada especially given that federal online poker is not currently under consideration after Senator Harry Reid failed to introduce his bill in Congress during the lame duck session.
He told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “The need to make clear the governor’s ability, should he choose, to negotiate such agreements, was paramount. I don’t know if there are specific negotiations right now.
“We wanted to make sure the authority was there, however, to add more options in order to help the state,” he added.
Seven days in regulation:
Lottomatica recommended for Nevada licence
Golden Gaming also recommended – both expected to gain final approval from Nevada Gaming Commission on 24 January.
Five subsidiaries of Italian gaming company Lottomatica have been recommended for online poker licences in Nevada following a Gaming Control Board (GCB) meeting in which Golden Gaming also gained approval.
Lottomatica, the parent company of online lottery specialist GTECH G2 and slot machine manufacturer Spielo, plans to act as a supplier of online poker technology in the Silver State. However it has yet to announce a partnership with land-based casinos which, under state regulation, are the only entities able to operate poker sites. After merging Spielo International with GTECH G2 in November 2011, last month saw the combined entity rebrand as Spielo G2.
Golden Gaming, a privately owned Nevada-based business formed by former Station Casinos COO Blake Sartini, applied for an operator licence last August.
Schleswig-Holstein question dominates bwin.party pre-close
Operator notes uncertainty in German state, where it recently received a poker and casino licence.
Bwin.party reinforced its insistence that any future regulation of the German egaming market “Must be in a consistent and coherent manner in-line with EU law,” the operator announced in its pre-close trading update.
Noting that trading since 30 September has been in line with company expectations, with the full-year EBITDA margin anticipated to lie between 19.5% and 20.5%, the operator turned its attention to Schleswig-Holstein, where last month it was among the first wave of operators to be awarded an online poker and casino licence.
Responsible for an estimated 21% of bwin.party’s revenues, Germany is the operator’s largest single market and analyst Ivor Jones of Numis issued a ‘Buy’ recommendation, noting: “If Germany catches up with its neighbours bwin.party should thrive.”
Genting penalised for Chegwin tweet
ASA rules that message from former Saturday Superstore presenter was not clearly identified as promotional material.
A tweet from television personality Keith Chegwin has seen Genting Alderney’s sweepstakes brand partner Publishers Clearing House (PCH) cautioned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The watchdog deemed that a message sent from Chegwin’s (pictured) Twitter account could be misconstrued as a marketing communication, yet was not clearly identified as such “ despite the fact that PCH claimed that the TV presenter had tweeted without its prior knowledge or consent.
Despite the ongoing promotional relationship between Chegwin and PCH, the ASA said, it was unclear that he was tweeting on the company’s behalf and was therefore “not obviously identifiable as a PCH marketing communication.”