Gaming Executive Summit Europe 2009 - The Major Issues

July 14, 2009 | News Category: Online Casinos

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The Gaming Executive Summit Europe 2009 completed its third summit last week. The conference took place from 7 - 9 July in Eurostars Madrid Tower, in Spain. The conference is held for leading online and offline gaming decision makers, and covers the many issues facing the gambling industry.

The conference attracts many of the top executives in the online gaming world, such as CryptoLogic's Brian Hadfield, Playtech's Roger Withers, and PartyGaming's Jim Ryan,amongst very many others.

The Gaming Executive Summit Europe's website states "The global gaming industry is often labeled as one of the most dynamic industries in the world. The industry has undergone incredible innovation and developments in recent years and has become a fully-fledged segment of the entertainment industry. However, there can be no doubt that extremely challenging times are ahead, which will inevitably lead to a reshaping of the landscape and the emergence of new winners and losers."

While many topics were discussed, two major issues were brought up and discussed in depth. The one issue was what expectations there are in connection with the American Internet gambling market, and how it will affect participation from offshore gambling operators. The other major issue discussed concerning online gambling was the creation of a single European online gambling market.

The leaders of the conference did not feel that the single European online gambling market was likely to occur in the foreseeable future, although the European Union is trying to deal with their member countries that are not complying with the expected trade practices. There were somewhat strong opinions regarding the protectionist nature of the United States online gambling industry. Opinions were expressed that the US is not likely to open up their online gambling industry to foreign participation in the future.

According to Gigi Levy from 888 Holdings, the US is likely to continue to follow protectionist practices even if they legalize and regulate online gambling. He explained that they have already withdrawn from their GATS (General Agreement of Trade and Services) commitments, which means "it doesn't have to conform to any World Trade Organization regulation on Internet gambling." It is therefore, highly unlikely that non-US gambling operators will benefit from the regulation of the US gambling industry. It seems to be far more likely that any new licenses that will be issued, will be given to land-based gambling operators that wish to operate online.

The pattern that exists at the moment is that different countries are adopting their own regulatory rules with regards to online gambling, which means that it is highly unlikely that any kind of global online gambling market will be able to operate in an unified manner, as the industry had hoped it would.