Austria should have a dedicated gambling authority, says Gernot Blümel, the country’s finance minister.
Licensing and supervision of the industry, he said, should be outsourced and independent. Blümel was speaking on television this week and said that the function of watching and regulating the industry should be taken away from the country’s treasury. He said that the current supervision of the industry was "tangled."
The remarks come on the back of concerns about the current gambling monopoly in the country, held by Casinos Austria, from the Austrian Association for Betting and Gaming, the OVWG.
The organisation said in a statement that the country needed “state-of-the-art gambling regulation in line with market conditions.” This, it said, would “serve to create a transparent and secure gaming environment, player protection, legal security for companies and comprehensive control, plus guaranteed tax revenues for the state.”
