Chamber, EU call for legal certainty in online gambling

The European Economic and Social Committee has called for more legal certainty in the online gambling sector and formally put forward its views in the Opinion drawn up by Maltese rapporteur Stefano Mallia.

The Opinion was adopted at EESC Plenary by four votes against 130 in favour.

The Chamber of Commerce said that online gambling is not considered to be an ordinary economic activity and is currently not subject to the rules of the internal market. Member States have adopted a wide variety of approaches.

"Such approaches vary from a complete ban, to monopolies, to a system of licences. This unfortunately is creating a lot of uncertainty within the industry," the Chamber said.

"Operators need to have more legal certainty when setting up shop in any of the EU Member States so that they can then carry out the necessary investments."

In the Opinion, Mallia warned that the "real danger of the online gaming industry will be driven into the hands of black market operators, leaving consumers exposed to fraud and abuse".

The European Commission has already established that some 85% of all online gambling websites are illegal, meaning that they have no kind of license and are therefore not subject to any kind of controls or monitoring.

"This is extremely serious, especially when you consider that there are millions of consumers entering these sites every week," Mallia said. "As things stand today consumers will find it very hard to identify which sites are legal and which are not."

When entering illegal sites consumer are fully exposed to serious crimes such as fraud and ID theft.

The EESC opinion strongly recommends that an EU framework of Consumer legislation is put into place to protect all EU consumers of online gambling services. The legislation should set a minimum (not low) standard of consumer protection whilst at the same time allowing individual Member States the margin to additionally develop higher levels of protection should they wish to do so.

"If a Member State feels that it should afford its citizens a higher level of protection than that established by EU legislation then it should be allowed to do so. At least in this manner, consumers across the EU will be guaranteed a level of protection which is common across the EU. Presently such a guarantee does not exist," Mallia said.

Malta Chamber President Tancred expressed his satisfaction that a Maltese member of the EESC was appointed as rapporteur on such a delicate matter.

"We all know how important the online gaming industry is for Malta and therefore it is in our national interest that the industry develops in a coherent manner across the EU. I think the EESC opinion as drawn up by Mr. Mallia provides an important contribution in this direction. This is a real a concrete example of how we can make our presence in the different EU institutions count," Tabone said.