In the last two decades since online gaming landed on screens, countries have taken difference stances in terms of their way of embracing or blocking companies that were offering online poker, casino and sports betting products.
When we reflect on the last 20 years it is clear to see that the way each country handled the industry is a direct reflection of their respective cultural and governing policies.
Some countries were ahead of the game and among the first to apply laws to support the industry within normal free market conditions. Other countries took the exact opposite approach of trying to block and ban these websites from operating through implementing laws that made the industry illegal.
Then we have unique examples of countries like Hungary whereby the Hungarian government attempted to block foreign gaming companies from offering online casino services; but simultaneously tried to benefit themselves by offering a handful of licences only to companies that were established within the country. Such attempts at controlling the market were not permitted due to being an EU member state that is legally bound to allow other EU regulated companies to offer services to their citizens.
So it is clear that the way governments tried to adapt to this new industry was to apply the same methodologies they also apply to other already existing industries. This meant that countries such as the UK, Curacua, Malta and Gibraltar were ahead of the game in their approach of trying to benefit the country, the players and the companies all at the same time.
Early adoption of these regulatory approaches benefited the country due to the increase in taxes being paid by the companies offering their services, players benefitted from being able to gamble with websites that were being overseen by the regulators, and the companies benefitted from being able to make profits through the legitimate services they were offering to customers. All together a win, win, win situation.
EGBA - regulated gaming in the EU
Initially there were no EU wide gambling regulations being applied, meaning that most of the EU member states followed their own individual approaches. However, recent developments have seen the creation of the EGBA European Gaming and Betting Association.
The compliance and legal developments in the industry have been interesting to see and what was once an open and simple industry to operate in, is now a complicated market for companies to function due to the varying compliance and regulatory frameworks that each country around the world is requesting companies to abide by.
Regulation in such an industry is necessary – gaming firms were originally able to apply a holistic approach to their legal and compliance programs to ensure that they are functioning with best practices and protecting their customers, but now such practices have to be managed at a country by country level with the compliance and legal teams being the most significantly important departments within the said companies. Non-adherence to a countries regulations have seen companies banned from future operations, which has been costly for some key gaming providers within the sector. Individual country regulations has made regulatory adherence to be a time consuming and expensive cost of doing business forcing some companies to withdraw from offering services in many jurisdictions because it was no longer profitable to be operating in those countries.
One example was in Italy because the country was enforcing companies to pay taxes based on individual customer transactions and not based on the companies holistic profits in that region. This was completely unworkable and meant that the country had to go back and make changes to the regulations that they were requesting to be applied.
What is next for online casino regulations?
In general the regulations have become much stricter as time has gone by with numerous ways that the regulators are trying to protect players from addiction and financial troubles. Examples of such restrictions include companies having to apply time warnings to customers when they are playing for a certain period of time, automated betting limits being set on customers’ accounts, and easy self-exclusion policies when the customer so much as indicates that they may have a gambling problem.
Among the most significant regulatory implementations is the restrictions applied to the way that companies can advertise their products.
Strict warnings have to be mentioned in all advertisements which reminds us of the direction that marketing restrictions within the tobacco industry evolved, to the point that tobacco advertising was banned. Will the online gambling industry evolve in the same manner, continuing stricter and tougher adherence to regulations to the point that online gambling advertisements will be banned? Will the EGBA push regulators in this direction? Some would argue this would be a good thing. It will be interesting to see the direction in which the regulators will go in the next decade. More insight and information on gambling regulations in Europe can be found here on the EGBA’s website.
Disclaimer: Play responsibly. Players must be over 18. For help visit https://www.gamcare.org.uk/