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Is Sweden's Privatization of Poker Gaming Monopoly to Stall EU Lawsuit?
Fri, May 23rd, 2008 @ 12:00am
Petter Nylander, chief executive of Unibet, has described news of a partial privatization of the Swedish government's online poker Internet gaming monopoly, Svenska Spel, as a strategy by the Swedish government to avoid being sued in the European Court of Justice.
The European Commission has sent Sweden reasoned opinions asking for justification of their gaming monopoly and rejecting reasons they have responded with so far. Nylander, according to the egaming review article, said the pressure from the European authorities was starting to show.
"The legal advice to the Swedish Ministry of Finance is that the country is very close to breaking EU rules on the provision of cross-border services and is getting closer to being asked to appear in front of the European Court of Justice. The first investigation into gambling was cancelled and the latest gaming inquiry is due to submit its findings in mid-December," Nylander said.
LOOKING TO SELL OFF ONLINE POKER
Reports
in the Swedish media appeared yesterday suggesting that games that are considered
less likely to lead to gambling addiction might be sold off. However, Nylander
said the inquiry commission had still not defined what those games were.
"They originally included lottery games and are now looking at including sports betting and poker (as being low risk), which Svenska Spel has been very successful at recently. Overall though, they have not truly defined what they consider to be harmful or not," he said.
Nylander added that market forces were dictating the pace of change in the European online gaming space, which when added to the regulatory pressure brought on by the European Commission, was forcing protectionist countries such as Sweden to adopt a range of measures that were ill-conceived.
The Swedish Minister for Finance Anders Borg recently commented that the question to consider was whether Svenska Spel should continue to operate less harmful games or if other operators should be allowed to offer them to players.
The news follows a report published in early May by the Swedish Moderate Party's Culture Committee that said the Svenska Spel monopoly should be abolished, and an earlier vote last October by Sweden's ruling party to end support for their government's monopoly on Sweden's online gambling industry, and also to privatize Svenska Spel.
The recent report postulated that a licensing system for online operators would raise enough revenue to make up for any loss of income brought on by ending the state monopoly.
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