Brussels, 15/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Maarten Haijer, Secretary General of the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), has expressed his satisfaction with the recommendations for his industry, proposed by the European Commission on Monday 14 July. Contrary to the traditional operators, he is in favour of harmonisation in the sector (see other article).
(Interview conducted by MD)
Agence Europe: how satisfied are you with the recommendation of the European Commission (EC) on online gambling?
Maarten Haijer: Member states have still quite diverging legislation on consumer protection in online gambling but they all try to reach the same objectives: prevent minors from playing, give proper information about winnings, transparency. But their measures are a bit different. Most of our members have licences in a lot of EU countries. For them it is extremely difficult and burdensome to comply with all these different measures. Therefore we are extremely happy that the EC came up with these recommendations. It is a very good first step, we should move progressively towards also legally binding measures.
Are the common principles set by the EC reachable for your industry?
Our members comply with the 140 measures of the European committee for standardisation agreement for responsible remote gambling. They are not very different from the proposal of the EC. You need to inform the player of how much they play, the state of their account, how they get their payment, warn of the risk of problem gambling, … So we feel really reassured and comfortable that the EC recommendation is not different from what we already do. We long ago realised it is wise to have high social responsibility.
Is there a risk that the recommendations are too prescriptive to be respected by the member states, like on advertising for example?
No one has any interest to have consumers going beyond their limits. Gambling is entertainment, like movies or TV, and that is the way it should be. Therefore proper rules are needed to make sure that it remains so. There is lot of common sense in the recommendations, some are very good basic measures and they all need to be implemented. We don't think it is too burdensome, and we actually hope and encourage the member states to implement them. There will be a review after 18 months, and we think there is a fair chance that, if member states don't implement the recommendation, the new Commission will then consider more binding measures.