Bwin Arrests and European Gaming Law

[Vallerius]

The situation in France is inherently different from what is happening in the US. While authorities in the US are generally opposed to all forms of online gambling, there happen to be legal forms of online gambling in France.

France, like most European countries, maintains a gambling license system that only authorizes one or two state-run domestic companies to offer gambling services. BWIN is a foreign company that has not been authorized by the French government so the French feds believe it is illegal. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all Internet gambling is illegal in France. The French government only wants to stop foreign companies from offering bets to French residents, whereas the American government wants to stop all foreign companies from offrering bets to American residents. Generally speaking.

This is actually a problem that has been underway in Europe for several years. With the exception of the UK and offshore jurisdictions like Malta, Gibraltar, Isle of Man and Malta, most other European states insist that local companies are the only ones that should be able to offer online gambling. This is not easy to enforce, considering that all a company based in Gibraltar has to do to accept bets from a Dutch citizen is to set up a Dutch language site. So a handful of cases have worked there way through European court systems.

To simplify the arguments-- The private gambling operators argue that the monopolistic countries violate EU free trade laws that were designed to limit preferential treatment to local companies. But the governments who uphold monopolies argue that their systems protect the public by minimizing gambling.

It's a tricky situation that has been in the scope of the European Commission for many months now. The Commission is said to be investigating whether the monopolistic countries are violating free trade laws. These recent arrests are certain to bring more attention to the situation and hopefully speed up their decision.

[aksana]

Thank you for the information. It's very useful for me.