European Commission Launches Probe into UIGEA Fairness

admin — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:03:13 +0000

The European Commission, the legal arm of the European Union, announced on Monday the launching of a probe into United States rules preventing European gambling companies from offering their services to American customers. The probe targets the United States’ 2006 passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which forced many European gambling companies to withdraw their services from America.

The launching of the probe follows the lodging of a formal complaint with the EU in December of 2007. That complaint was made by the Remote Gambling Association, which is based in London and lists 30 online-gambling concerns as members. Among the RGA’s listed companies are Betfair,
888, PartyGaming, William Hill, Ladbrokes, Microgaming, Playtech, CryptoLogic and several other important European players.

Said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, in announcing the launching of the probe, “The US has the right to address legitimate public policy concerns relating to internet gambling, but discrimination against EU companies cannot be part of the policy mix.”

The EU probe is expected to last five to seven months, and will produce a report which in turn could lead to the launch of World Trade Organization proceedings by the European Union against the US. The EU was formerly a party of interest in Antigua and Barbuda’s much-publicized complaint against the United States over US restrictions on online gambling, but the EU has not, to date, filed its own complaint on the matter. The Antiguan complaint was also, as a technical matter, narrowly defined to Internet-based horseracing betting services, leaving the door open for a larger complaint on more generalized online-gambling topics.

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Austria Launches State-Run Online Poker Room

admin — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:02:27 +0000

Austria has joined Sweden as one of the only two governments currently offering a state-run online poker room with the launch of its new poker site at win2day.at. The Austrian room, which went live yesterday, was developed with the assistance of the other current state-run room in existence, Sweden’s Svenska Spel.

The new Austrian state site runs on the Boss Media network and began taking registrations yesterday morning, both for real-money play and four special €5,000 introductory freerolls available to Austrian citizens, an ad for which was prominently displayed on the site’s front page.

The online site also offers an extensive selection of lottery and casino games, all served up
under the auspices of Österreichische Lotterien GmbH, the official Austrian lottery, along with Casinos Austria, the other government agency authorized to offer online games of chance, and itself a majority owner in Österreichische Lotterien. Casinos Austria also advertises its land-based poker options on the site, including an upcoming 2008 Austrian poker tour. The site also includes how-to videos and other instructional offerings and upsells the game of poker, with early indications showing strong opening-day registration; well over 2,000 live players were noted as active on the site within 24 hours of its grand opening.

Worth watching in future months will be the Austrian government’s attitude toward privately run gaming companies, such as Bwin, which is one of Europe’s largest brands and is itself incorporated in Austria. Attempts to make win2day.at into an online monopoly for the Austrian market would run the risk of drawing European Union ire, as has happened recently with Sweden.

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European Commission Launches Probe into UIGEA Fairness

Austria Launches State-Run Online Poker Room