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A new law like UIGEA could be passed in Norway, as Reuters reports.
Rolf Sims, legal adviser to Norway’s Ministry of Culture explained that a new draft law is planned that could make processing of bet payments illegal. A collegue of his – the Norwegian Gaming Board legal adviser Thomas Helgesen explained that the Norwegian “is responding to the growing public backlash against gambling.” A decision is expected by first part of 2008.
But the Norwegian govt still supports their state-owned gambling monopoly , arising a conflict of interests with their “efforts” in combatting gamblig addiction.
This is also ironic, taking into consideration that the Norwegian Annette Obrestad won the biggest tournament in European histor and its government is talking about banning the online rooms where Annette15 earned her poker chops.
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  An interesting presentation from Emeline THOMAS :
National approaches, the international community and gambling online help to highlight the difficulties presented by the Member States to abide by the requirements of the European Community and the World Trade Organization.
The interest in this subject is to demonstrate the complexity of the legal sector gambling online. Because of the international nature of this type of activity, several national regulations are applicable. Currently each member state has its own design of the regulation of gambling. However, the first mission assigned to the Community is the realization of a common market. This objective is stated in Article 2 of the EC Treaty: “The Community’s mission by establishing a common market and an economic and monetary union by implementing policies or actions ( …) to promote throughout the Commonwealth a harmonious, balanced and sustainable economic activities. . ” To achieve this objective, Article 3 of the EC Treaty requires four components, namely the various freedoms of movement: “Community action (…) has an internal market characterized by the abolition, as between member States, of obstacles to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. . ” Member States must comply with the objectives of the EC Treaty in order to implement the common market.
Read more »
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Partypoker has announced a new upgrade to their software, that includes the poker software in the native language of the users from Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Partypoker announced with the same occasion that it will host a 50 000 USD Freeroll, exclusively for nordic players on 22 November 2007 – starting with 14:30 ET ( that is 19 00 CET – why the hell didn’t they put the CET hour if this is just for nordic players ? -LOL). Registration starts on 1 November 2007.
This is another cool decision from PartyGaming that wants to better penetrate the European market – see also a cool article from Independant on the company recent financial announcements.
In another somehow related news from Gaming Intelligence we findout that the Swedish Moderate Party ( the party in power ) has announced on Saturday that it will sell Svenska Spel and ATG, the swedish gambling monopolies.
Tomas Tobé MP declared that “By December 2008, an in-depth report on the gambling market will be released following an investigation by Jan Nyrén, legal counsel of the police authority, but the party congress did not want to wait for this and voted for change to take place more rapidly†.
Mr Tobé also said that with the European Commission monitoring Sweden’s activities with regard to the provisions of the EC Treaty, it would be preferable that the government took steps to address the issue of its own accord, as opposed to being compelled to do so by a ruling from the European Court of Justice.
Svenska Spel generated a profit of 523 million euros in 2006 and could be valued at roughly 7.05 billion euros.
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I found, via Net Bet Blog a great article regarding UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) and its effects on the US Market. The article ” Internet Gambling Act Should Be Scrapped” appeared in Bloomberg
and points out the moste important problems with the enforcement of this act.
The author is Joe Saumarez-Smith is chief executive officer of Sports Gaming, a U.K. management consulting firm to the gaming industry. He also owns European online bingo companies and odds comparison Web sites.
Here are some snippets :
As America learned during Prohibition, some bans are unrealistic. The online gambling law shows that legislators weren’t paying enough attention in history class.
At least Prohibition aimed to prevent the consumption of alcohol across the U.S. without exceptions. Banning some types of online gambling while allowing exemptions for lotteries and horse racing is protectionism of the worst kind.
…. Read more »
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Partygaming, owner of the PartyPartners Affiliate Programme released its Q3financial results, that show and increase with 24 % from the same period last year. This mounts up to 115.7million USD, thanks to a huge rise by their Casino business (promoted under the brand PartyCasino) that rose with 158 % and sports betting activities ( especially from the recently-acquired Gamebookers) that were bigger with 91%.
PartyGaming achieved average daily revenue of 1.26 mln usd during the third quarter period and suprisingly it “pointed out this was after a particularly strong first half in 2007 and said, for the year to date, the number of new player sign-ups was still 44 pct ahead of the same nine-month period in 2006.”
The gambling group, listed on the London Stock exchange, looked optimistic in the future – and the data confirm the estimated trend.
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Mr. Peter Nyland, the director of the Swedish online betting firm Unibet, was arrested on the Amsterdam airport, when he was trying to fly to UK.
The Dutch authorites have claimed that they have a warrant from the French authorities that have accussed Mr. Nylande of breaking French laws that prohibit online gambling. This case has apparantely nothing in common with the recent decision against Unibet in the Dutch trial against De Lotto.
It is an application of the controversial European Arrest Warrant, under which people accused of a crime in one country can be arrested in another country without a prima facie case having been established.
According to BBC, French lottery monopoly Francaise des Jeux and horse racing betting monopoly PMU filed the proceedings against Unibet in 2006.
The moment of this new scandal is the worst possible for French authorities that want to comply with the European Commission recommandations and European Court of Justice decisions regarding online gambling in European Union. France could change its gambling laws soon.
Unibet has demanded Nylander’s immediate release. In a statement the company said it was “outraged by France’s total disregard of European Community law aiming to protect a domestic commercial gambling monopoly, which is being challenged by the European Commission. However disturbing French authorities’ methods are, for Unibet it is business as usual.”
The European Commission representative confirmed their concern over the story : “This is an issue which we have been informed about, we are worried about, and that in our view somebody might have been arrested who is innocent under (EU) law,” said Oliver Drewes.
Unibet is registered in Malta, operates out of Britain and is listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. It claims to have 1.8 million customers in 150 countries.
Update 25.10.2007 : After a hearing on 24 October 2007 in the afternoon, Unibet CEO Petter Nylander was released to the more comfortable surroundings of a local hotel, after agreeing not to leave the Netherlands. Nylander is expected to gop at the beginning of the next week in France to face the judge that issues the warrant. Th eFrench authorities were embarrased by the new situation and aid thatThe Financial Minsitry declared it “regretted the timing of Nylander’s arrest and hoped that the FDJ and the PMU would drop the complaints that started the case against his firm.”
tags:
ecj,
european comission,
oliver drewes,
pmu,
peter nylande,
arrest,
dutch,
european arrest warrant,
france,
holland,
netherlands,
online betting,
unibet
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After bwin impressive four-year $70 million shirt sponsorship deal with the famous Real Madrid Football Club, the company decided to take advantage of the brand development in Spain and, in partnership with Betbull, will start its first shops in the first quarter of 2008.
The duo bettinmg companies takes advantage of the new lax regulation from the spanish government regarding betting shops. The companies have announced that they will expand inall Spain later on.
Simon Bold, Betbull Director, declared “The forthcoming year will see the fruition of many months of planning and fine tuning of our betting products and systems for the Spanish market.â€
On another note, bwin announced that it is interestied in buying 36% of the Austrian lottery Monopoly Bawag, that could cost approx. 200 millions euros.
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The two organizations battle is going for the use of the trademark “Swedish Poker Championships”, a competition already held online and offline.
Both the SPA and Svenska Spel will arrange online championships in November 2007 with a similar name.
SPA says they have trademark on that name -Â “It is very shocking that a crown corporation with monopoly status does not respect the law of trademark,” said Peder MÃ¥nsson, chairman of the Swedish Poker Association.
Svenska Spel says that is a generic name and can’t be a trademark -
“As far as we are concerned, you are not able to protect a trademark as generic as Swedish Poker Championships, since it is too common a concept. You could claim a trademark on a logotype which featured the words ‘Swedish Poker Championships,’ but not on the phrase alone,” confirmed Jacob Lagercrantz, spokesperson for Svenska Spel
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An Utrech court has decided that prohibited Unibet gambling proposers by means of its Internet site illegal offer gambling games, among which gambling football paid on Dutch amateur games and games from.
As this Dutch website reportsthe Dutch monopoly operator De Lotto says it has secured a court verdict last week against European online operator Unibet, following Unibet’s decision to offer betting on amateur football in Holland. However, the Wimbledon-based operator says it has no knowledge of the ruling.
The lawsuit had been tightened by the Lotto, the only licensee in the Netherlands for offering sport questions. The Lotto gives annual approximately 60 millions euro to the combined Netherlands Olympic Committee and Dutch Sports Federation NOC*CNSF and other good aims in the field of culture, social well-being and public health.
The Lotto organisation doneerde since its establishment in 1961, has clearred 1.5 billion to several good aims. More than 1.1 billion of it helped to the sport. The Lotto is, beside the government, of the important geldschieters of the Dutch sport.
The Lotto, as only licensee, is moreover at this moment in conversation with the KNVB concerning herintroductie of Toto.
Resistance worker gambles on sport games receives a lot of attention the last time prominent. Recent is there in the House of Commons ask keen concerning offer of gamble on games from amateur football by the company Unibet.
In the sentence the Utrechtse right who offering gambling games, predominates, among which gambling on amateur games and games from paid football is prohibited, without Dutch license. By doing this, however, Unibet act unlawfully towards the Lotto. Unibet must strike by directly its gambling offers under penalty of a penalty payment of 100,000 euro per day and with maximum of three millions euro. This is 17th the time that the Dutch judge judges that offering illegal gambling games in the Netherlands is prohibited.
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The European Interactive Gaming Congress and Expo (EIG) held in October 2007 in Barcelona was the place where a new code of conduct for the european gambling industry was suggested, starting from a worshop discussion started by Microgaming and than joined by GamCare, eCogra, and the RGA that presented the new code of conduct to leading online gaming jurisdictions.
The 30-points code of conduct is dealing with issues regarding poker and other forms of online gambling is loking into issues related to responsabile gambling such as : underage gamblers, protection for online players, , advertising, staff training and customer communication.
Andrew Poole, MD of GamCare Trade Services, declared : ‘We are hoping that adoption of this code will better enable the gambling public to make better informed decisions regarding their online gambling destinations, with the knowledge that operators are required to protect the welfare and enjoyment of their players.’