The Greece’s gambling regulator stated that all legal entities, including shareholders, key executives, manufacturers, technology suppliers and certification bodies may now apply for obtaining licenses for online gaming and betting, The Indian Wire reports. Greece’s Parliament had passed the Gambling Regulations in October last year and its. The GCC affirmed in Decision No. 105/2/26.5.2014 (the Internet Gambling Regulation) and 51/26.4.2013 (the ISP’s liability on accessing illegal online gambling sites, Article 3.4) that the Law. The Remote Gambling Association and the European Gaming & Betting Association are challenging Greece's new online gaming regulatory framework. In March 2015, the Greek government announced plans to issue new online gambling licenses in an effort to raise EUR 500 million a year for the country. CMS Expert Guide to online gambling law and regulation in Europe The gambling industry is constantly in a state of change. Check out this Expert Guide to see the gambling legal landscape and who to contact for any gambling regulatory concerns. Greece Finally Unveils New Online Gambling Regulation Updated On Sep 18, 2018 by Ella McDonald iGaming operators who had plans to enter Greece have had to wait a long time for online gaming regulation to be released.

Conditions have remained difficult for Greece's nine land-based casinos despite a reduction in gaming taxation that came into effect at the end of 2018, two years earlier than expected.

The changes saw casino taxes reduced to 20 percent from 35 percent of GGR, but added tough new licensing requirements for the properties.

An outright smoking ban, introduced in October 2019, has impacted trading at venues already suffering competition from online gambling and VLT halls with some casinos experiencing revenue declines of more than 30 percent in the final months of the year. Previously, casinos had been able to pay a per square metre fee to allocate smoking areas inside each property.

The showpiece Hellenikon Integrated Resort casino project in Southern Athens, where development costs are expected to exceed €1bn, has again become mired in legal wrangling after spurned bidder Hard Rock International confirmed that it would launch an appeal against the decision to exclude it from the process, that left only rival Mohegan Entertainment as a contender in the process.

A new Greek online gambling law is currently being evaluated by the European Commission to replace a transitional licensing programme that has been in place since 2011, but the new licences will be Europe’s most expensive and it is unclear whether any of Greece's land-based casinos will take the opportunity to seek licenses.

Greece does offer land based poker and gambling, but its availability is very limited, with only 2 of its 8 casinos offering it, with only a total of 8 poker rooms in the entire country. (1)

Greeks’ casinos and poker rooms are also set up to primarily serve tourists, and are therefore located in areas of high tourism, and therefore not only is their population underserved here, it isn’t really served at all.

So with such few land based options, Greeks have had to pretty much turn to online poker to get their poker fix. Greeks are particularly fond of poker, more so than in a lot of other countries, so this does represent a significant market that is in need of being catered to.

Early on in the history of online gambling, back in 2002, the government of Greece passed a law banning all forms of electronic gaming, in response to all of the internet cafes that were now offering it. This law was so broad though that it banned all forms of electronic gaming from these public places, including non gambling related electronic gaming such as that played on Xbox or Playstation. (2)

Greece Online Gambling Laws

Eventually, the laws were relaxed, with the 2011 Gambling Act which permitted both land and online based gambling, subject to regulation. The government started issuing temporary licenses to large gambling companies with the plan being to make these licenses permanent in time.

We then started to see online poker companies looking to play ball with this and large sites such as Poker Stars and Party Poker set up specific Greek domains and segregated Greek players for tax purposes, although they were still allowed access to the main player pool.

So this was met with favor by EU officials, as it embodied EU principles of fair trade and free market access among companies registered in the EU. So far, so good.

Greece Goes From Free Market To Monopoly

So this situation was working out pretty well for the Greek government, until they decided to scrap the idea of an open market and grant a monopoly on gambling Greek company OPAP, which the government owns a large stake in, and which already had a large presence in the Greek land based gambling market, and therefore they were given power to run all gambling in Greece.

Greece Online Gambling License

The EU though is already battling with countries that have granted monopolies on gambling to state run companies, and are in the process of pressuring them to abandon these monopolies in favor of a free market offering, and in this case Greece moved in the opposite direction.

So needless to say this didn’t sit well with the EU, not only is Greece a member of the European Union, the EU has spent a lot of money bailing out Greece financially to help them overcome the extreme difficulties they have faced over the last few years.

So the gambling companies were told to wind down operations by Greek officials and to exit the Greek market, and this didn’t sit well with them either, feeling that they were being treated unfairly and not at all in accordance with the requirements of EU members toward gambling.

So they sought remedy through the courts and sued the Greeks, and in January 2013, the Court of Justice for the European Union agreed, and found the Greek monopoly to be unlawful. (3)

This resulted in the government of Greece submitting several proposals to the EU looking to comply more with their requirements, but as we speak the monopoly remains in place and the situation remains unresolved.

The Greek government also claimed that gambling was something that it sought to limit since they felt it was so addictive, but given that they recently licensed a further 35,000 land based gambling machines in the country, under the control of state sanctioned OPAP, this doesn’t appear to be their motivation.

Their stance and actions likely have to do with their wanting to maintain more control, and to reap more of the profits of this as well, however profits from the monopoly are dropping fast, at least partly due to the high level of taxation that is being levied. It’s actually thought that the rationale driving this is the government’s desire to add value to the shares they own in OPAP, but even that that hasn’t worked out very well so far.

The Future Of Online Poker In Greece

Even though online poker players may not have access to their favorite games at internet cafes in Greece, playing from home is still a viable option and players are free to do this without a whole lot of interference from the government. (4).

While the Greek government has sought to have various sites blacklisted and have asked Greek internet service providers to block them, there are workarounds for this, and blocking a website doesn’t mean that someone can’t play at the poker site, as this does not affect using the software itself.

Still though, this can present a bit of trouble and not all players are familiar with the ways to get around these restrictions, so it does serve to at least limit somewhat the growth of the Greek online poker market.

So in a lot of cases there isn’t any real practical value to open market regulation, but in Greece it does matter at least somewhat.

It is very likely to be the case that increased pressure from the EU will be brought to bear in the near future, and therefore it is likely that they will be forced to reopen the market to foreign gambling companies, and this will probably happen sooner rather than later, although these things do take time so it’s not right around the corner either.

Meanwhile, there’s not a whole lot stopping Greek online poker players from playing their favorite game online in the comfort of their own home, and many online poker sites openly welcome Greeks, and some even offer their software in Greek.

Since OPAP doesn’t even offer online poker at this time, there really isn’t any alternative but to play on offshore sites.

So things are actually pretty decent now, especially given that playing at offshore sites doesn’t involve running into the higher tax rates that regulation brings with it, and the Greek government has shown that they are on the greedy side here if anything, so there’s really not much to complain about with the situation as it is right now.

References:

(1) Greece Poker Rooms

(2) Online Gambling in Greece

(3) ibid.

(4) Online Gambling Sites in Greece

(5) Greece Blacklists 401 Gambling Sites

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