EU countries “lacking enforcement” against unlicensed gambling, ECA says

The European Casino Association (ECA) has warned that online gambling providers are continuing to target jurisdictions without the mandatory licence in the respective country.

It is estimated that up to 50 percent of total online gambling revenue is generated in countries where the respective operator does not hold the required licence.

In a statement, the association said: “Despite tools being available to national policy-makers to tackle this issue through strong and effective enforcement, many countries seem to lack the political will to tackle this issue.”

A recent survey run by the ECA on the effectiveness of enforcement reported that while effective measures are in principle available, they are often not used and best practices in their implementation are not shared between EU countries.

The survey concluded that the most effective enforcement measures against unlicensed gambling providers are advertising blocking, IP blocking and blacklisting of unlicensed operators.

The statement continued: “The ECA therefore calls on national policy-makers and regulators to put in place strong and effective enforcement measures, such as those identified in the ECA report.

“The continued toleration of unlicensed gambling operators providing their services in EU countries has led to substantial issues.

“Such operators at times lack responsible gambling measures and do not pay taxes in the target country, comply only with low-regulatory regimes and represent an unfair competition to the licensed and regulated national gambling operators.”

This article originally appeared on igamingtimes.com