Robert Zammit, senior associate at Malta-based law firm WH Partners, considers the implications of recent online gambling recommendations issued by the European Commission.
AS a result of the European Commission’s public consultation on its green paper on online gambling in the internal market of 2011 and its Communication of October 2012 on July 14, 2014, the EC released a recommendation on the principles for the protection of consumers and players of online gambling services and for the prevention of minors from gambling online (“Recommendations”).
Although the aim of the Recommendations is to safeguard consumers in the online gambling sector, and does not yet aim to harmonise the online gambling sector, it has still been considered by most stakeholders as a positive step in the right direction, even though a recommendation is not a binding instrument.
The Recommendations lay down the basic standards that remote gaming operators across Europe should be subject to for the protection of the consumers. These include the provision of information to all customers, the protection of minors, player registration and account management process, player activity and support, time out and self-exclusion mechanisms, and commercial communications, apart from suggestions on the education of players with respect to online gambling.
With these Recommendations it is clear that the message the EC wants to convey is that the online gambling business is an important sector of the European economy and safeguards should be placed in order to ensure that customers feel safe when accessing licensed online gaming sites, and reduce the move towards black markets.
If properly implemented throughout the EU, these Recommendations can result in a very effective tool to reduce some of the threats affecting the legitimate online gambling services.
Most jurisdictions that opted to limit online gambling operators or enacted legislation to create a licensing regime for the online gambling sector, had given the main raison d’être for their actions as being precisely the protection of the consumers and of minors.
How genuine these jurisdictions’ claims were can only be assessed in how they will implement the Recommendations and how quickly these jurisdictions will collaborate and provide reports as per the Recommendations. Furthermore, with the publication of the Recommendations, jurisdictions will be in a more difficult position with regards to the restrictions and non-recognition of operators already licensed in other jurisdictions, which are compliant with the Recommendations.
Maltese operators in particular have welcomed these Recommendations since, on analysis, comparing them with the Remote Gaming Regulations, subsidiary legislation 438.04 (“Malta Regulations”), in force in Malta, one immediately realises that the Malta Regulations are mostly in line with the Recommendations. This, shows how progressive the Malta Regulations were when enacted back in 2004. In fact most of the suggestions made in the Recommendations have been requirements for obtaining a Maltese remote gaming licence since the inception of the Malta Regulations.
Read the full article in the latest issue of iNTERGAMINGi
