[C O L U M N I S T ]
Everything’s
different, nothing
has changed
Tim Phillips looks at how regulation in Europe has impacted
the gaming industry over past few years
review
of
Europe’s
regulatory landscape was
the subject matter of a
discussion by a panel I
chaired recently at an
industry event. Despite my concerns
about leading this debate in front of an
audience full of up-to-date lawyers and
regulatory specialists, it did give me the
chance to reflect on what has changed
since I was at Betfair.
On the face of it, the sector feels the
same as when I was last chairing a panel
at a similar conference at the start of
2011. Many of the same faces still working
in the industry, many of the same issues.
A trade journalist recently joked with me
that he could take headlines from stories
he wrote a few years ago and simply
insert them into articles he needed to
write today: “Is the US about to open up?”
or “Mobile: has its time come?”.
Dig a little deeper, though, and so much
has changed, and it is regulation that in
my view has had the single biggest impact
on the industry over the last few years.
With online gambling remaining
an intensely political issue, Europe is
unlikely to see a true single market in
the sector for many years, if ever. This
has a big finan 6