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Greece is Largely Unconcerned

An announcement from European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy last week could mean legal action against Greece for the country’s current restrictive and monopolistic legislation regarding the online casinos and sportsbetting industries. McCreevy has taken a firm stance lately that the online casinos monopolies in ten EU member states must be eliminated. All of the ten EU nations with gambling monopolies are violating the founding principles of the EU – the free movement of goods and services between EU member-states. But for the most part, the countries with online casino gambling monopolies feel that their exclusionary practices are justified and are willing to take the issue to the European Court of Justice.

McCreevy has exerted heavy pressure on those countries not in compliance, but even so it just hasn’t seemed to make a difference. Greece’s state monopoly, OPAP, is an online casino gaming company that mostly has a monopoly. Gambling companies based in Cyprus offer competition for the country’s state-monopoly, but no EU member-states really have access to the Greek gambling market. An online casino gambling analyst based out of Athens commented that OPAP does not see the warnings as a “immediate problem.” The analyst notes that "Greece has said it is arguing for OPAP to be exempt from competition, and it will take a couple of years for a final decision to be taken by the EU in any case."

And there is certainly truth in that assessment – the countries with online casino and betting monopolies do not really feel a strong reason to comply with the Commissioner’s requests. By staying in a state of non-compliance and continuing to operate gambling monopolies the state governments continue to receive significant revenue and the court case before the European Court of Justice will take years to actually come to a decision. If the court though rules that Greece (and the other nine member-states running gambling monopolies) is in violation the country could face a hefty fine and be forced to open its gambling market.