The Need for Unified Gambling Regulation in the EU

A major strength of the European Union is the creation of a standardised environment which will favour the consumer and lead to stronger and more innovative business practices. The official European Commission website says the following about their Standardisation policy:

“Standardisation has played a leading role in creating the EU Single Market. Standards support market-based competition and help ensure the interoperability of complementary products and services. They reduce costs, improve safety, and enhance competition.”

However, with the recent regulation of online gambling across multiple members of the European Union one of the weaknesses that have been noted is its lack of consistency.

Why EU Compliance Standardisation Would Be A Win-Win

Rather than turning a blind eye to the problem the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) is actively engaging with their member operators, which include the likes of Betsson and William Hill, to address the challenges they face in remaining compliant with multiple divergent regulatory requirements.

EGBA secretary general Maarten Haijer said:

“Our work focuses mainly on relevant EU policy and regulations but it has evolved, so a lot of the work that we do now is around regulations in various countries and educating about the online gambling sector policymakers, regulators and a wider audience.”

In a perfect world, all EU member states would agree on a set gambling standard effectively reducing the active regulatory frameworks from twenty-seven down to one. Allowing operators to ensure the best possible service for players while being able to easily manage internal compliance requirements.

In addition to making life easier for operators, it would streamline the regulation and taxation of online gambling for countries who are interested in offering it. With a predetermined framework, legislation, licencing fee and taxation system in place new adopters could very easily implement an attractive new revenue source for their region without years of research and potentially implementing flawed regulations.

 Is There A Light at The End of the Tunnel?

As a larger discussion around bringing all currently available licences under one umbrella, there does not seem to be any short term big wins. This has to do with the vast number of licences already active in the market – EGBA member holds more than 120 licences alone – and the fact that addressing misunderstandings about the market are more effectively addressed face to face and the pandemic has everyone on lockdown.

In terms of more general regulation, the EGBA does count its successful implementation of a code of conduct for gambling advertising as well as those relating to data protection and GDPR as a major win.

Haijer added:

“We encourage other associations to sign up to both codes. The industry needs to step up and take responsibility. And these codes provide basic but essential standards which operators should apply. We are speaking with different operators that are not EGBA members but do want to sign up.”

They are currently working on creating industry guidelines for Anti-money laundering (AML) and setting the bar for acceptable AML compliance.

The hope is that while working on streamlining regional regulations may be a long-term goal in the short to medium term these codes of conduct will lead to a more unified approach to industry regulation where it best serves the player.