Greece Accelerates Move to Legalize Online Casinos

At least one victim of the world economic recession appears to have forsaken any “holier than thou” attitude towards the evils of online gambling in favour of a far more sensible and practical approach. Despite its recent descent into bankruptcy, the poor relative of the European Union estimates that its citizens generate around 5 billion Euros in taxable revenue every year through their various gambling activities.

That may not seem like a lot to a country that is faced with the crippling repayments on debts that are said to total as much as €310 billion and growing but it’s still a whole lot more than they can hope to make selling Ouzo and Dolmades to a dwindling tourist market.

The debt crisis appears to have lit a fire underneath those who were previously in favour of a monopoly for Greek Betting Giant, OPAP, on all forms of gambling.  The company, it appears, will now have to be happy to retain its monopoly on lottery tickets and sports betting until 2019 whilst, in the meantime, the government will be offering the online licenses for casinos and card rooms to those best positioned to implement them. It is widely anticipated that a draft framework for the regulation of online gaming in Greece should be available for public consultation quite soon.

Despite the risk that OPAP could be sidelined by the government’s new stance , its CEO, Ioannis Spanoudakis, remains under the impression that his company is still the best able to take advantage of the new licenses having already established more than 5 000 sales agents around the country. With a 34% shareholding in OPAP, the government too, has interests of its own to protect.

The progress of this vital new legislation is being hampered currently by the prevarications of the lawmakers and already the government’s financial plan to generate its first €1.3 billion in license sales, taxes and royalties by 2012 is showing a first quarter deficit for 2010 of around 11%. The longer the delays in implementation, the greater will be the losses and it seems certain that the government will need to take some stern action to accelerate the process.

It all sounds a bit familiar doesn’t it?  It ‘s quite easy to forget that a bill was passed by the previous government to legalize online gambling in South Africa and, mare than two years into the new administration, we are still awaiting the regulatory framework from our own snail-like bureaucrats at Trade and Industry.