Page 106 - Casino City's iGaming Pocket Directory - 2013 Edition

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JURISDICTIONS
There were two main reasons for the lower prices:
1. It requires less overhead to run an online gaming business than it does to run a
brick-and-mortar business.
2. Most of the online gaming businesses located themselves in tax-friendly
jurisdictions, giving them additional freedom to offer better prices.
Punters flocked to the new online offerings, and an industry was born. And not only
was it a new industry, it was a cross-border industry – and a new school of thinking
about regulations opened up.
Now online gaming was all about the unimpeded flow of goods and services –
especially across the EU. The industry tried hard to convince the EU and the European
Commission to take a one-market approach to online gaming. That is, if you were
based in an EU member state and offering online gaming services, other nations had
to respect that and allow you to offer them.
In addition to opening up markets, there was a significant regulatory advantage for
operators in a one-market system as well. Compliance is expensive. And maintaining
one infrastructure to comply with one set of regulations is far easier than trying to
comply with several different sets of regulations.
For a while, this one-market strategy appeared to have some legs. The U.K. adopted
online gaming legislation that recognized and allowed licensed operators from other
EU member states (and certain other areas) to offer their services to U.K. citizens. And
Charles McCreevy, the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services from
2004-2010, initiated a series of proceedings against countries that refused to open up
their online gaming markets.
But the rest of Europe refused to travel down that path. They fought EC efforts
to create a one-market system of online gaming, maintaining it was their right to
regulate gambling as they saw fit for a variety of reasons, including preventing
problem gambling and fighting crime. And there were never enough votes to pursue
EU legislation that would harmonize gaming rules.
A series of ECJ rulings reinforced the right of EU member states to regulate online
gaming for the purposes of public policy, public security and public health – though
they had to be able to demonstrate that any restrictions met these criteria. And the
one-market dream for online gaming began its death spiral, ultimately punctuated by
the departure of McCreevy in 2010.
IGAMING JURISDICTIONS OVERVIEW