The European Lotteries Association (EL) has joined forces with the European Casino Association (ECA) and the World Tote Association (WoTA) to fight illegal online gambling and embrace the foreseen Digital Services Act package.
The EL, the ECA and the WoTA together in an alliance against illegal gambling welcome the European Commission’s plans to modernize the rules applicable to the online environment.
All three associations noted that, as representatives of the licensed and regulated gambling industry in Europe, they cherish the same values of trust, reliability and integrity for their players, supporting the right of people to enjoy and play in a nationally licensed secure gambling environment.
The alliance, with almost one million people employed by its respective members, represents over 150 operators in the gambling and lottery sector in Europe, which together contributes more than €35bn yearly to good causes and state budgets.
With over 350,000 independent points of sale for lotteries and around 900 casinos across whole Europe, the alliance said its operators offer a wide variety of safe, well-regulated and controlled games and channel the players to this legal and nationally licensed supply of games.
It called upon everyone to support its members to enable this significant contribution to the benefit of society to continue.
The Digital Services Act package foresees a notice-and-action mechanism that will enable all alliance users to notify online intermediaries about potentially illegal online content or activities and to help the latter to react quickly and be more transparent regarding the actions taken.
The alliance sees this as an important improvement in the fight against illegal online gambling offerings and it looks forward to the enforcement and implementation of these measures by the involved stakeholders to protect the interests of all EU citizens.
Illegal gambling operators offer their services online to players located in multiple EU member states without having obtained any license in such national markets.
The alliance noted that these practices are illegal and detrimental for consumers and state budgets, as there is no mutual recognition of national licenses in the gambling sector within the EU and no sector-specific EU legislation in that field is needed.
The three associations stated that illegal (not licensed in the country of offer) gambling operators:
- Do not respect the laws and regulations set up by the national regulators of the EU Member States where they provide their services
- Make it practically impossible to protect consumers and especially a vulnerable population from the risks of overconsumption
- Can enhance the emergence of social problems and crime and constitute a major problem in the fight against money laundering
- Often do not pay taxes in the national markets where their players are located and do not contribute to any public good or specific charities
- Represent an unfair and unequal competition to the nationally licensed and authorised gambling operators, threatening their legal business models and the substantial sustainable economic and social contribution they provide to EU member states.