Gambling regulations among members of the EU are on the crossroads of issuing a general regulation that would apply to all countries equally or continuing with partial freedom where each country would continue dealing with gambling operators, licenses and taxes its own way.
Lately, Italy, Greece, the UK and Germany have all been going in different directions with gambling regulations, and gamblers are the ones that suffer the most.
William Hill and Betfair have already left the Greek market due to inconsistencies between Greek regulations and the ones from the EU, which are mostly concerned with the newly imposed historical taxes. The country’s legal uncertainties have made many gambling operators leave their Hellenic customers adrift.
On the other hand, Italy has recently released further licenses for online gaming to its very own Italian software providers, making the market more than attractive to many companies. Germany has also started delivering more licenses, which mostly focus on sports betting though.
The latest regulation released by the UK aims to protect British based users, specifically with online bingo, casino websites and telephone betting, where licenses will be required for both local and overseas operators in order to keep their British customers.
Unfortunately, it all seems to point to the fact that regulations in the European Union still have a long way to go in becoming more consistent and transparent among its members. Let’s just hope that the regulations will take customers’ benefits and their freedom of choice into consideration.