Some individual member states within the EEC have started to liberalise their attitudes towards gaming and the online gaming industries.
Over the course of the Summer 2009 countries like Italy, France and Germany have demonstrated a desire to open up licencing of gambling to more than their state run monopolies.
Italy led the way, with its Abruzzo Decree in June, followed by its Anti-Crisis Decree and then by the Law 88/09. These Decrees and Laws combined to make space for the legalisation of online games of chance with fixed odds like casino games and Vegas style games and the increase in the issuance of licences to multiple national lottery tenders. The new Italian legislation has opened up the gaming market within Italy to multiple suppliers. It has also allowed for tenders for gaming licences from suppliers from other parts of the European Economic Area. It has simultaneously retained control by insisting on those with operating licences in Italy connecting to and getting authorisation from a central computerised point at the AAMS, (the Italian gaming regulatory authority). Thus, they can monitor an individual’s gaming activities and prevent problem gambling, they can monitor and research gaming habits per say and they can ensure that suppliers within Italy pay the correct amount of taxes on their takings… (we won’t comment on the big brother aspect of this surveillance at this juncture..)!
France are set to emulate a lot of the new Italian framework towards online gaming, with a heavy onus set on another big brother-esque management technique; of “filtering out” (censoring..?) any illegal (undesirable) websites. Whilst Germany are looking towards the abandonment of the Interstate Treaty on Lotteries (ITL), with the State of Schleswig-Holste, last month putting forward the plan which would practically speaking allow for online gambling.
For a more detailed analysis of the liberalisation of these countries’ attitudes towards gaming please read the article found here.
This entry was written by Nena on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 10:46 pm and is filed under News.
