According to Khalid Ali from the European Sports Security Association, a competitive landscape must be created for betting firms by the upcoming European Union wide public consultation on the future of the online gambling market of Europe which is growing quite rapidly. Michael Barnier, the internal market commissioner of the EU, is about to launch a public consultation later this month which will be about the internal market’s online gambling services. All relevant public policy challenges and possible issues of the internal market which are caused due to the rapid growth of illegal online gambling directed at the citizens in the EU, will be addressed by the consultation, according to a draft copy of the Green Paper.
A meeting of the College of Commissioners will see the Green Paper finalized next Wednesday, before the consultation is launched in the last week of March, said Chantal Hughes, the spokesperson of Commissioner Barnier. Various models for the regulation of gambling co-exist across different parts of the EU as the EU governments at the national level currently regulate their own market. Licensed operators or strictly controlled monopolies which operate within very strictly regulated frameworks tend to dominate national markets.
However, the draft of the Green Paper reads that the increased supply in the online gaming services due to the development of the internet have made the co-existence of these national regulatory models very difficult at the present. It invites the stakeholders to consider whether the member states of the EU might be able to achieve the objectives of their respective gambling policies with greater cooperation at the EU level. Ali said that his priority was the development of a landscape that was competitive as he believes that it will give the bookmakers of the continent an upper hand over the others.
According to him, Europe will also be supported by online gambling in the era of competition and innovation that we see today when the companies in Europe are the leaders in the world when it comes to new standards and new technologies which include online streaming facilities and security measures.
