LONDON
(Reuters) - European restrictions to cross-border gambling over the
Internet will face a growing number of legal challenges and could fall
away within the next three years, according to a lawyer who specialises
in gambling.
Although European Union law allows cross-border trade by gambling
companies, many individual states prevent it, and critics accuse them
of doing so to protect their own state lotteries.
"It's no longer a case of will the barriers come down but more a
question of timing," Ewout Keuleers, an attorney at the Bar of
Brussels, told the Gambling Law Conference on Wednesday.
"In two or three years, part of the market will be opened up for more
socially acceptable forms of gambling such as sports betting," he told
Reuters afterwards.
"It's also possible there will be an opening for poker, if courts view it as a game of skill," he added.
Poker has become a big money-spinner for Internet gambling companies,
which estimate the size of the world Internet gambling market at
between $7 billion and $12 billion per year and say it is growing at
around 20 percent per year.
Restrictions on cross-border gambling -- particularly in the United
States -- are seen as posing the biggest risks for big new flotations
such as that of PartyGaming in London.
Keuleers said legal challenges to cross-border gambling restrictions
have come up in European courts four times since July 2004, compared
with five times between 1992 and July 2004.
He pointed to Germany and Finland as countries to watch.
Last month, Finland's Supreme Administrative Court overturned a
government decision preventing Hilton Group's (HG.L: Quote, Profile,
Research) Ladbrokes from operating there.
"In theory there are restrictions, but in reality the restrictions are becoming increasingly difficult to enforce," he said.
"It's unlikely that within 2006 we'll see an open gambling market in the EU, but slowly we'll get there," he added
