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Dutch Opposition No Surprise

The ongoing problems in the European online casino gambling industry continued this week with the 2008 European Gambling Briefing. The EGB involved all of the major players in the European online gambling – from the former CEO of Svenske Spel to Dutch officials. These individuals all met in London last week to discuss the current state of gambling in the EU – with specific emphasis on the continued prevalence of state-run online casino monopolies. Several EU member-states are currently upholding monopolistic online gambling policies despite pressure from the European Commission to operate an open internet gambling industry.

Several EU nations participated in the discussions, and not surprisingly the Dutch government opposed all of the arguments presented for ending lucrative state-run gambling monopolies. Others upheld the Commission’s efforts to force countries like Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Greece, France, and more, to open their internet gambling markets to include foreign online casino operating out of fellow EU member states.

The major argument presented by Dutch representatives centered on the fact that state-run online casino gambling monopolies are highly lucrative for the state governments. And while some countries assert that this is reason-enough to continue gambling monopolies (and believe that the European Court of Justice will uphold this reason as valid) others have noted that many of the highly established state online gambling monopolies could continue to compete in a deregulated European gambling market. The former CEO of Svenske Spel made this observation, which comes as a blow to the other monopolies claiming competition in the gambling market will leave the state coffers underfunded.