European Union Favors Unified European Gambling Laws

The European Union Parliament assembled this week to discuss the Creutzmann report on online gambling in the European Union. Representatives of online gambling operators were present in the discussions.

Jurgen Creutzmann is a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) who drafted a report on the state of online gambling within the European Union and recommended to the European Union to adopt a single collection of accepted consumer protection laws relating to online gambling.

The Creutzmann report called for the EU to provide directives to individual Member States that will give them a framework regarding how to legislate and regulate online gambling. The report also calls for mandatory co-operation among the various national online gambling regulators under the supervising eye of the European Commission (EC).

The report also recommends that the EC consistently pursue Member States whose national online gambling regulations are in violation of various EU laws.

In addition the report stresses that there needs to be a unified license application process for all Member States to avoid duplications of different verification processes once an operator was already verified by one Member State.

The European Union Parliament accepting this new report is raising many questions with regard to the consistency of the EU stand with regards to online gambling. Up to now the EU was adamant about maintaining the status quo of allowing individual Member States to form their own laws and regulations with regards to online gambling.

The Remote Gambling Association (RGA) has welcomed some of the recommendations made in the report. Clive Hawkswood, RGA chief executive said: “It now wants to regulate rather than prohibit and it is pressing the commission to act against member states which unjustifiably restrict access to their gambling markets…there has been a welcome advance in understanding of the licensed remote gambling sector by many MEPs and recognition of the important economic role it plays in stimulating growth and innovation.”