It has been reported today that Norway are to compel banks and financial institutions to block payments to betting companies not licenced in Norway.
The new rules will come into place on 1st June 2010 and is a clear move to protect Norway's state monopolies, notably Norsk Tipping and Rikstoto.
The government are using the same old arguments to justify such a move, notably that doing so will limit illegal gambling and protect Norway's citizens from gambling addiction.
Things could not be further from the truth. All this move will do - in theory, if it works - is make it more difficult for respectable, legal and licenced EU-based operators from operating in Norway. As a result, all Norwegians will be forced to bet with operators based further away in far less protected regimes.
The issue that so many governments do not seem to get a grip of is that if you have a state-run gambling monopoly, the bottom-line result is a lack of value and choice for the consumers in that market, as our betting challenge has shown over the past six months. Why would a consumer want to bet on Bayern Munich at evens when he or she knows 2-1 is available elsewhere on the internet?
As a result, it is inevitable consumers will look elsewhere, and if the regulated operators in the EU are barred from Norway they will be forced to gamble with unregulated companies. This results in no guarantee of player protection, return of money or, indeed, that such companies do anything to fight fraud and corruption, something that all EU-licenced operators are required to do as part of their licence conditions.
When will Norway and the many other EU countries rumoured to be considering such a move realise that this is completely the wrong way to go? This is in nobody's best interest - obviously not for the private operators, not for the consumers and not even for the governments, who will be able to tax licenced companies but not the unlicenced operators to which they are forcing their citizens to go.
The new rules will come into place on 1st June 2010 and is a clear move to protect Norway's state monopolies, notably Norsk Tipping and Rikstoto.
The government are using the same old arguments to justify such a move, notably that doing so will limit illegal gambling and protect Norway's citizens from gambling addiction.
Things could not be further from the truth. All this move will do - in theory, if it works - is make it more difficult for respectable, legal and licenced EU-based operators from operating in Norway. As a result, all Norwegians will be forced to bet with operators based further away in far less protected regimes.
The issue that so many governments do not seem to get a grip of is that if you have a state-run gambling monopoly, the bottom-line result is a lack of value and choice for the consumers in that market, as our betting challenge has shown over the past six months. Why would a consumer want to bet on Bayern Munich at evens when he or she knows 2-1 is available elsewhere on the internet?
As a result, it is inevitable consumers will look elsewhere, and if the regulated operators in the EU are barred from Norway they will be forced to gamble with unregulated companies. This results in no guarantee of player protection, return of money or, indeed, that such companies do anything to fight fraud and corruption, something that all EU-licenced operators are required to do as part of their licence conditions.
When will Norway and the many other EU countries rumoured to be considering such a move realise that this is completely the wrong way to go? This is in nobody's best interest - obviously not for the private operators, not for the consumers and not even for the governments, who will be able to tax licenced companies but not the unlicenced operators to which they are forcing their citizens to go.
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