The Gaming Industry, including online gambling industry, has been seeing many turbulences and turmoil with regard to the legality of them.  Many countries have seen the revenue earning opportunities to their respective governments in the right perspective and have allowed gambling as a legalized industry.  This is because of the basic concept that gambling is an individual human passion and so far as an adult member of the society chooses to indulge in gambling it is their look out and concern.

In some other countries like the U.S.A. there seems to be virtual partisan attitude by the law enforcing authorities, in allowing real life casinos and gambling dens of giant sizes to do roaring business to trillions of dollars on the one hand and crippling the online gambling websites with rules and laws from their normal functioning.  Surprisingly the reasons adduced for such enactments are bordering fun in that they claim to protect the online gambling players from “social evils”.  The financial activities of the websites in accepting wager monies through recognized U.S. banks are curtailed by the enactments.  American citizens are prohibited from partaking in online gambling games under the existing laws.  Apart from challenging this discriminatory action of the federal governments in Courts, the gaming industry leaders are circumventing the ban by operating their services online from foreign soils.  It is a different story altogether that millions of Americans are still playing online gambling, using the technological advancement of the cyber-world.

Yet another episode of discrimination pertaining to treatment of the gaming industry has come to light as latest.  Following the foot-steps of Germany promulgating an enactment banning gambling activities of offshore companies, the country of Sweden has been accused of following discriminatory tactics and encouraging monopolistic trade practices in gambling industry.  Similar to the challenge made in the European Court of Justice against the German law, two Swedish News Papers have gone ahead in opposing the Sweden Government’s arbitrary rules in the Swedish Supreme Court and other subordinate Administrative Courts.

The details of the case are that the Sweden Government is encouraging monopoly of the Swedish companies engaged in the gambling industry and causing hindrance to these popular Swedish News Papers from publishing advertisements of offshore gambling organizations.

During last January, the editors-in-chief of one of the Swedish News papers have written a detailed letter addressed to the Commissioner of the European Union seeking his help in establishing the supremacy of the European Treaty among the member nations and putting an end to the harassment of the Swedish Government and its local gambling industry organizations supported by it. 

The letter puts forth all the relevant facts and occurrences of persecution on the part of the Swedish Government against the two news papers and asserts the incompatibility of the Swedish law against that of the EU law, which is binding on all the member nations of the EU.

The highlight of the news is that the Sweden Supreme Court has issued orders directing the Court of Appeal to hear the cases that involve the above two news papers and their plea against the high-handedness of the Government.

Things have changed massively in the last couple of years and Seine has seen different tides sweeping its banks and France, the country that once gave the Riviera Casinos a free hand for an industry approval, now sings a different tune. That said – online gambling is now a restricted phenomenon by the French government, though the French online casino business is as old as the British ones.
 
It was Jean-François Copé (The French Minister of Budget) who took the first step in 2006 by establishing the Consultative Committee to monitor responsible gambling to ensure the safety, integrity, accountability and reliability. All this prepared many of the French casinos to go for eventual legalization by seeking and winning the approval of eCogra Ltd. (the industry standards body) for offering the required safety and security for online gambling.

eCOGRA, the providers of an international framework for the best requirements in operation and player practice enforced thorough inspections, reviews and monitored continuously the practice of the gambling sites and appointed independent global audit companies; all these filtered out a total of 85 sites that complied with the guidelines and won the Play It Safe Seal.

It was evident from the words of Andrew Beveridge (CEO, eCogra Ltd.) – “Leading online casino and poker room brands recognize that players care about the Play It Safe seal, and that seal-bearing casinos attract more players and create additional revenue opportunities,” – that the response from these French Casinos were indeed honest intentions; the CEO also gave his kudos to them for their wise decisions. “We applaud these operators for their efforts and encourage others to help us reach our 100 seals goal by committing to the eCogra principals of fair gambling, responsible conduct and player protection.”

But as of now, the European Union closely guards the political as well as the legal proceedings in the gambling jurisdictions. Wes Himes (Managing Partner, Policy Action) also commented about a French civil servant who shall be – “drafting a report for sometime before the summer, which will provide a sort of background on the industry and most likely make some recommendations as to how to accommodate and regulate an online gambling market in France.” Now, that is a call to making a resolution during mid-March this year, though Wes Himes also specified that – “I think March 2008 might be correct for the report; but I think in terms of actually seeing legislation, we’re quite far from there right now.”

This has affected the French side of the English Channel on the subject of Internet gambling in the recent months to the extent of an arrest warrant issued against Unibet CEO Petter Nylander. However, the French Parliament is still halfway between deciding the rules and the regulation for French online gambling; they are game for helping out an industry based on the Internet that is still at its very nascent state, although they are putting up a stronghold against other online casinos on the other side of the English Channel, particularly, those based in London.