Online casinos in France, Spelinspektionen under fire, UKGC takes on black market

This week saw a significant number of regulatory shifts with long-lasting impacts on the industry, mostly in Europe.

Perhaps one of the most significant changes was the introduction of an amendment to France’s budget for next year, which is seeking to introduce online casinos in the country. France is one of two European Union Member States to not offer iGaming products and to have left this to unlicensed operators that usually operate beyond the country’s border.

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government plans to regulate online casinos and introduce a 55.6% tax on them which should help in theory prop up the ailing public purse, help alleviate the pain of a gaping deficit and address the proliferation of black market operations. The land-based casino industry has responded with a warning to the news, arguing that 30% of its venues may be shuttered, while 15,000 jobs will be at risk.

Moving on, Sweden’s National Audit Office (NAO) has criticized the country’s gambling regulator, Spelinspektionen, and called its monitoring of the gambling industry as inadequate. The main critique was focused towards several areas where the watchdog had failed, the NAO insisted.

First, the regulator spent too much of its time focusing on processing licensing applications rather than monitoring for breaches of the regulatory regime. Another matter that NAO saw as deficient in the regulator’s resource and time management was the fact that Spelinspektionen would not follow up with a brand to see if enforcement criteria have been met.

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has launched a new study that will utilize search traffic data to better understand the true size of the black market in the country.

The regulator hopes to leverage a tested, although not completely sure-fire approach, in helping it better understand the true reach of the offshore gambling market in the country, and what it can do to improve channelization into the regulated market.

Although the methodology that will be used by the UKGC has "inherent limitations," it is nevertheless a good starting point.

Finland is changing the way social support is distributed, the country’s social watchdog, Kela, said in a statement.

The idea is to now make sure that people who suffer from gambling problems find it easier to qualify for state aid after changing the way their gambling wins and losses are calculated under a new set of criteria.

Business & finance

Dabble, a social betting business, is now looking to go public according to reports. The platform has not yet made up its mind whether it would want to launch its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the US-based NASDAQ or Australian ASX.

"We are currently exploring possible IPO pathways with both Australian and US advisers, and the early feedback is that Dabble could make for a promising IPO prospect," the company said in a statement. More concrete details could be forthcoming.

Star Entertainment Group has been dealt a regulatory blow in New South Wales after the company’s Sydney property has been found unfit to hold a license. The license has been suspended, but remediation actions are continuing with a special manager in the face of Nick Weeks to continue and oversee the casino’s operations until at least March 31, 2025.

In the meantime, the NBA has come to an arrangement with its Official Sports Betting partners, namely DraftKings, BetMGM, and FanDuel, to remove certain types of prop bets, especially on players who are in the lower tiers of the league financially. The move is just the latest of a set of measures designed to protect players and the integrity of the game.

XLMedia will move forward with the sale of its North American business assets to Sportradar AG in a $30m deal. While XLMedia agrees to the sale in principle, shareholders would still have to give the go-ahead during a General Meeting due to take place on November 7, 2024.

Responsible gambling

Australia has launched its first statutory review of the country’s self-exclusion program, BetStop. Following a year of operation, 23,000 active registrations, and 30,000 registrations over its lifetime, Australia is now looking to gauge the efficiency and areas for improvement of the program. It’s generally agreed that BetStop has been a success so far.

NSW GambleAware Week 2024 in Australia is coming to an end over the weekend, and Responsible Wagering Australia was once again supporting the campaign aimed at raising awareness about gambling-related harm.

Gordon Moody is set to open a new residential treatment center in Redditch, which is intended to help individuals recover from severe cases of gambling addiction and gambling-related harm. The UK charity is pioneering a new approach to addressing gambling harm in the country.

The voice of the industry

This week Casino Guru News had another opportunity to catch up with various industry professionals. The team caught up with Amanda Brewer, a long-standing member of the Canadian Gaming Association, and an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience under her belt. The discussion focused on Canada’s burgeoning regulated market, which is now centered around copying "Ontario’s playbook."

Casino Guru News also spoke with Phil Sherwood, PrizePicks’ Senior Director of Responsible Gambling, who went into detail and elaborated on how his company is elevating RG in daily fantasy sports, and what the similarities were between PrizePicks and traditional sports betting platforms when it came to protecting consumers.

Not least, Casino Guru News had Marina Ostrovtsova, CEO at BGaming, talk about the rise of corporate social responsibility in iGaming and harmonizing a company’s obligations to make a positive social impact with its growth and success story.

To wrap up, Casino Guru’s Complaint Resolution Center has marked its fifth anniversary since launching in August 2019, having published 42,000 complaints and recovering more than $33m US dollars for players globally.

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