The international online gaming sharing liquidity between Italy, the UK, Spain, France and Portugal shall happen in June according to a report from ARJEL. International online gaming sharing liquidity seems a “never ending story” that we have been watching during almost the last decade. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the current plan is apparently to have an agreement between Italy, the UK, Spain, France and Portugal. The agreement was expected by mid-2017 and now the French gambling regulator, ARJEL, has announced in its report that the deal between regulators will be signed by June 2017. This does…

The European Union’s top court will consider the legality of the UK’s online gambling point-of-consumption tax (POCT). The UK implemented its 15% POCT last December, shortly after the Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association (GBGA) launched a preemptive legal challenge. The GBGA believes the POCT discriminates against Gibraltar-licensed UK-facing operators and was primarily intended to boost the UK government’s tax coffers, rather than to protect UK punters from alleged harm. On Tuesday, the UK’s High Court sided with the GBGA, announcing that it was sending the case to the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU). The High Court said…

Following a two year process, the European Parliament has approved a new anti money laundering (AML) directive, which aims to strengthen EU member states framework on tax evasion and terrorist financing. The AML directive will increase monitoring of digital transactions, making it accessible it easier for authorities to trace funds. Financial services institutions and online gambling operators will be made to follow specific reporting obligations with regards to suspicious transactions made by their customers. The directive has been welcomed by Maarten Haijer, Secretary General of the European Betting and Gaming Association (EGBA), who stated that the association was pleased of the…

The European Union will not pursue a common gambling framework for the EU, according to European Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska. The Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs reiterated the organizations opposition to a single regulatory approach, despite a seemingly continuous number of disputes between individual nations and the EU over policy. Bieńkowska’s statement came in a letter to Italian Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Mara Bizzotto, who had questioned whether a uniform gambling framework for the EU was preferable following the ban on slot machines voted by the government of the Province of Vienna. Bizzotto highlighted that Vienna…

NBA European partnerships are reportedly being discussed with various global betting companies over the possibility of securing a European partner. According to NBC Sports the NBA is keen on securing an official partner in Europe’s various regulated markets that allow consumers to bet on US professional sports leagues. The report names bwin.party and William Hill as two of the betting companies believed to be involved in the talks, but suggested that other operators have also spoken to the NBA. Both bwin and William Hill wouldn’t comment on the story when contacted by iGaming Business. An unnamed source that claims to have…

iGaming Business – The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has decided that EU law does not prevent the co-existence of liberal gambling regulations in Schleswig-Holstein and the so-called ‘Inter State Treaty’ agreed by the 15 other states in Germany. All of Germany’s 16 states, collectively referred to as the ‘ Länder’, with the exception of the northernmost of Schleswig-Holstein, abide by the treaty, which dictates stricter policies on gambling. The case dealt with by the CJEU focused on the question of whether the successful multi-licence regulation for online gambling operators in Schleswig-Holstein can exist side by side…