“Online gambling and child protection"
ICT Coalition Forum
Brussels, 18 April 2013
Florian Cartoux, EGBA
EGBA: Who we are
 Highly regulated industry with operators holding licenses in a
growing number of EU Member States
 Products include online sports betting, poker and casino
 Sector not harmonised, but included in growing secondary EU
legislation
 Maintaining high level standards
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At the forefront of E-commerce
 Europe global leader in online gambling with 45% market share
 Young industry at the forefront of digital economy
 Innovation: Internet, mobile phones, tablets, digital TV
 Broadband penetration: Malta example
 Jobs: 1,900 working for Swedish private betting companies & 7,000 in
Malta
 Security: Over 20 methods of payments accepted with standard operator
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Underage gambling: An absolute No-No
 Forms part of all national licensing requirements
 18 minimum age limit in most Member States (others 21)
 Customers must provide name, age, address and unique username and
password details
 No advertising targeted towards underage individuals
 Complemented also by self regulatory initiatives (CEN)
 Links to recognised filtering programme to assist customers/parents
 Account closed and refunded immediately if underage gambling is
identified or suspected
 Training to all employees involved in age verification
 External audits
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Underage gambling: What is the situation today?
 Limited data on the scale of the problem
 0.023% of all new customers in all countries (Unibet)
 Regulated markets show high success of keeping children off online
websites
 “It is true that no system is ever going to be entirely foolproof but the
example of gambling in the UK appears to show that some can work to a
very high level of efficiency” CHIS study October 2010
 “2% of children (amongst 11-15) have ever used online gambling “ Ipsos
Mori Research Institute 2011
 Regulation of online gambling guarantees transparency and
traceability
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Age identification: How does it work?
 Majority of Member States have diverging approaches:
 Some check via publicly available information (UK)
 Some check through fiscal codes (Italy)
 Some use a mix of paper verification (France)
 Others have no explicit know your customer requirements (Germany)
A complete fragmented approach – No internal market
 Need for e-tools (DK and ES) to improve efficiency of e- ID and offer
 Need for EU common standards:
 Directive for e-identification does not oblige MS to introduce e-ID
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Social gaming and online gambling
 Main difference with online gambling:
 No definition of social gaming per se
 Players play for free (though 1-5% are paying players)
 Players can not win money from playing or paying for the social game
 Players usually under the age of 18 can play
 Status of legislation:
 Online gambling: Heavily regulated at national level, subject to growing
EU secondary legislation
 Social gaming: As information society services subject to many EU
directives
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Should social games be subject to gambling
regulation?
 Growing scrutinity from gambling regulators, but no clear call for
extra regulation
 However, three topics may evolve the debate over time:
 Age verification: Should social games be subject to same requirements
as gambling operators?
 Addiction: Do players on social games need player protection tools like
for online gambling?
 Fraud: Do players need protection from potential fraudulent business
practices?
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