EC Goes Up Against European Online Gambling
 
JJuly 29, 2009

The fight for and against online gambling seems to change on a daily basis over in Europe. Some days it is a case where they are fighting to get online gambling legalized in one country only to find out that another one won’t allow it. Or they might find themselves working to open the borders of one country only to have another one close theirs. This is the way of the industry.
 
But usually in the forefront of the battle is the European Commission, who wants to see online gambling legalized and the monopolies eliminated. The European Union says tries to make it look like they are all one big happy family over there, but the fact of the matter is that there is a lot of in-fighting going on over there that just won’t stop.
 
Last year seven of the EU’s 27 members chose to make online gambling illegal. Only 13 of those 20 members that still allow online gambling allow it to be liberalized. The rest have created online gambling monopolies within their own countries, and have shut out the rest of the market.
 
In the Netherlands the EU is desperately trying to get them to open their markets, because as of now they won’t allow anyone inside their borders to place a bet with anyone outside of their borders. They have a true online gambling monopoly and have said that they have no intentions of changing it in any way. They say that they have modeled their online gambling rules after the ones that the US has passed and that they are working just fine for them. They have been warned but are not heeding the warning.

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