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The Gaming Executive Summit Europe 2009 took place last week in Eurostars Madrid Tower in Spain. This conference brings together the top level decision makers and leaders in gambling, both for online and land-based gambling, and for the lottery industry.
Many important discussions were had, both in the form of workshops, and more informally, as well as a number of interesting talks. The future of online gambling was discussed, with a focus on the global perspective, and more specifically issues regarding the United States online gambling laws, and European online gambling laws.
The predominant opinion regarding the US online gambling market was that it is unlikely that changes will be made that will allow foreign online casinos into the US market, even once the law changes, which seems to be the direction it will follow. It is more likely that the US will grant online gambling licenses to operators from within their own country, such as land-based casinos who are hoping to break into the Internet gambling market. It is highly likely that the US will continue to behave in a protectionist manner in this regard.
There had been hopes that the European Union members would form a unified and seamless entity as far as online gambling is concerned. However, the feeling at the conference is that this is unlikely in the near and foreseeable future since the EU countries are not all complying with the trade practices that have been outlined for them.
There seems to be a general worldwide trend that countries are all choosing their own regulations when it comes to online gambling, and will not likely form any kind of global online gambling market, as the industry had hoped. |
