In a judgment returned on Wednesday 28 February in case C-3/17, the judges of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) stated that the Hungarian rules on granting concessions to operate traditional casinos and the organisation of online casino gaming were discriminatory and counter to EU law.
Sporting Odds is a British company with a licence to organise online games of chance in the United Kingdom.
In 2016, noting that the company was active on the Hungarian market without a concession and license to do so, the Hungarian authorities imposed a fine. Sporting Odds appealed before the administrative and labour court of Budapest, arguing that the Hungarian rules on games of chance and online games of chance and casinos ran counter to EU law.
The Hungarian jurisdiction then issued a request to the ECJ for a preliminary ruling, asking it to examine the compatibility of these rules with the principle of the freedom to provide services.
The judges note that the Hungarian rules allow for concessions to organise online casino games to be awarded only to operators of casinos located on the national territory. They consider that these rules are discriminatory and restrict the freedom to provide services, adding that this restriction cannot be justified by objectives of public order or public health, which can be assured in other ways.
The CJEU also considers that the conditions to obtain a concession to operate a traditional casino, which is required for online casino gaming, runs counter to EU law, as per its Unibet International judgment of 22 June of last year (see EUROPE 11814). Certainly, no call for competition has ever been arranged to this end, despite Hungarian law. To claim a concession in the absence of calls for competition, furthermore, an operator must have carried out activities organising games of chance on Hungarian soil for ten years, which puts companies from other EU member states at a disadvantage.
Consequently, the ECJ concluded that the Hungarian rules on the operation of traditional casinos and organising online casino gambling are incompatible with the principle of the freedom to provide services and, therefore, with EU law. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)