Ashley Fox thinks that by creating a centralised regulatory authority that gaming operators could more easily set up in the member country of their choosing. Not forgetting of course that this would protect minors and fight addiction as well as money laundering. It appears that these proposals aren’t acceptable to everyone. In fact, it’s not certain that harmonising jurisdictions will guarantee reliable and harmless games for players. Inspections, even if there are now many of them, aren’t enough to completely check all gaming operators. In Europe, just under 7 million people take part in online gaming either online casinos, online poker, horse racing or sports betting. The money from these games is several billion euros, a figure that is increasing from year to year. This much sought after market may still attract many gaming operators in the coming years and this could lead to the same regulation in the European Community member countries.
Towards harmonisation of online gaming jurisdictions
European Community member countries must fulfil a certain number of criteria political and economic, community experience and an ability to integrate. However, in relation to online gaming, it seems that the countries don’t follow a similar policy. This is the reason why the Euro Deputy, Ashley Fox, believes that it would be preferable to have just one regulatory authority for cash games for the whole of Europe. According to him, this authority should be based in Gibraltar. This country in Southern Europe has an irreproachable reputation and rigorous regulation. Since 1998, the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority has granted licences to online gaming operators. However the number of authorisations remains under strict control because this authority doesn’t want to grant them to just anyone. It prefers to have the assurance that applicants scrupulously observe certain standards in particular that they can provide a certificate from an approved organisation which confirms that the software that they use is irreproachable and that they guarantee strong protection for players against any risk of addiction.