Tensions building over liberalisation of EU gambling sector - Monday 12th of September 2005
The high stakes question of whether to liberalise the EU lottery and betting industry is raising tensions between proponents of different gambling models in Europe as well as EU institutions.
National monopolies on the continent and British bookmakers have long been divided over how much control the state should wield in the sector.
But with a key study underway about liberalisation of the sector -- the first step towards legislation -- EU institutions are also at odds over the issue.
In Strasbourg this week, member of the European Parliament Jacques Toubon is to bring the European Unions executive commission to task over the study, which it commissioned in 2004.
Toubon is to raise a question before the parliament about the impartiality of the study which was carried out by the Centre for the Study of Gambling at the University of Salford in northern England and was partially sponsored by Stanley Leisure, a big British betting house.
The stakes are high in the liberalisation game, with British bookmakers and online gambling operators enviously eyeing the continental lotteries, which are often national monopolies or strictly regulated regional operations.
"Is gambling an economic activity like others? If we answer yes, then we should liberalise it," said Christophe Blanchard-Dignac, chief executive of the French gaming monopoly Francaise des Jeux.
However, until now most EU states have considered gambling to be a special industry subject to special attention because of the social problems such as "addictions and family dramas" that it can generate as well as "risk of criminal use" -- especially for online betting -- to launder money it bears.
Monopolies restrict and regulate gambling opportunities while "the free market tries to push growth to its limits", he explained.
"One way or another gambling creates large dividends and its got to be kept from being confiscated by private interests," Blanchard-Dignac said.
In most EU countries gambling possibilities are limited and winnings are usually capped at 50 to 60 percent of the stakes.
"If we give everything, the winnings are too big and its too dangerous," said Winfried Wortmann, president of the European Lotteries and Toto Association.
Whats not given back to lucky winners is used to finance public projects running from amateur sports in France to social assistance programmes in Portugal to Britains National Trust.
The European Commission finds itself squashed between the two sides in the liberalisation debate with the national lotteries suspecting it on the one hand of siding with the British bookies while at the same time it is swamped with complaints from the pro-liberalisation camp.
"There is a risk that the (European) Commission can be sued for inaction," said spokesman Oliver Drewes.
Despite the doubts about the viability of the study under way, he insisted that there was no questioning its independence and the methods used to make it.
Results of the study are to be made public in early November and then the commission will decide whether to pursue liberalisation or not after hearing from the different sides.
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