Online Gambling Regulation Likely in Greece

September 26, 2010 | News Category: Gaming Law

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A senior official from the Greek government was recently interviewed by the Agence France Presse. In the interview, the Finance Ministry representative spoke about the regulation and taxation of online gambling in Greece.

It seems that the online gambling market in Greece is being estimated at around €2 billion a year, which is certainly a tantalizing amount for the Greek government to want to collect taxation and licensing fees from.

George Christodoulakis, the senior official from the Ministry of Finance in Greece is supervising the move towards legalized online gambling. He had the following to say regarding the attitude to gaming in Greece: "The propensity for gaming in Greece is among the highest in Europe and the world." He further explained: "This has to do with our temperament and culture... The only thing one can do is set rules."

There is legal gambling in Greece, in the state run OPAP monopoly, however, Christodoulakis said that there is definitely illegal gambling that is taking place amongst the Greek since they are not all playing at the OPAP monopoly. He estimated that there is around €4 billion spent each year on illegal gambling, and that online gambling is worth about half that total amount.

He noted: "Illegal activity is huge and may have even outstripped legal gaming."

The Greek Finance Minister, Minister George Papaconstantinou, agreed with Christodoulakis, and confirmed that the numbers quoted were good estimates. He explained that the Greek government has plans to create a Gaming Commission in order to regulate the gambling sector. He noted that there are plans to introduce a bill to the Greek Parliament fairly soon, in order to bring about these necessary changes.

The European Commission has long criticized Greece for not conforming to the free trade requirements of the European Union as far as online gambling is concerned, since Greece has insisted on only allowing their monopoly to operate legal gambling in their country.

Not only has Greece only allowed their monopoly to officially operate, but there was a ban on gaming machines, which caused further problems for this cash-strapped country. There were raids on Internet cafes, arrests, and equipment was also confiscated.

The European Commission has criticized and fined Greece for their non-compliance. The Finance Minister said: "Our country today finds itself in the extremely unpleasant condition of paying around a million euros a month as a fine."

This is fairly tough on the Greek economy, which has a national debt of almost €300 billion.

Minister Papaconstantinou said: "We want a regulatory framework that is modern, compatible with European regulation, and that fortifies against illegal activity."

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