simple: gambling doesn’t win elections, and regulating gambling is not sexy. It’s left to the states so you multiply all the political discussions by 16 and then you get to a set of rules that is essentially the lowest common denominator. And so the federal system has hampered the development of a really coherent set of rules for regulating gambling. So if
you’re in a country that just has one government to talk to, I think, consider yourself lucky. JK: Martin, I heard you extolling Liechtenstein earlier. What was the key difference there?
MSy: Well, it’s the opposite end of the spectrum. In Liechtenstein, everybody knows each other. Everybody knows what the interests of the other person are. There’s a very small group of people who make the decisions. But perhaps the big difference is that Liechtenstein can’t live without input from its neighboring countries. Hardly any gambling revenue comes from people who live in Liechtenstein: almost all the money comes from people who live in Switzerland, who live in Austria, who live in Germany or Italy. It’s a gambling market that depends entirely upon foreign players, whereas Germany depends on German players. So it’s a totally different perspective, which requires a very different approach. And I understand the problem that Matthias has, but it’s one that is simply a sui generis problem for Germany. You can’t ask other people from other countries to provide a solution. We haven’t got one. JK: Karen, in terms of your wider experience from different countries, what do you like to see? If a regulator wants to instruct GLI? What do you like to see in that brief from the regulator? What would you welcome in terms of that regulator? Is it somebody to come in and say, we’re an open book here? You know, give us a steer and how we should organize ourselves? Or this is how we want to do with you plug in? KS-H: 20 years ago, when I started working through all these different countries and jurisdictions, things were very siloed. But I think the region has evolved and has opened itself more. There’s an open-door policy in most of the countries that are more mature in terms of gaming regulation. They welcome talking to operators, they welcome talking to suppliers, and that’s very important. In addition to that, they are also willing to collaborate with other regulators. That didn’t happen in the past. Everybody wanted to do things their way. But especially after the pandemic, with all these remote communications that we were able to have, governments were more open to communicate remotely and that helped a lot to collaboration. I just wanted to get back to talk about how different we see things depending on the socio-economic and cultural reality of the country or the region. We can see that some jurisdictions are big but they’re not attractive. Because the there’s not enough economical power. People like to bet very little, instead of having VIP players. Where internet penetration is low, online gaming is not going to be that successful. It doesn’t matter how big the country is. So another gaming vertical will be more attractive in that jurisdiction and you have to adapt regulation to that. In terms of how the policymakers or the legislators should work with regulators and the industry, if we take Brazil as an example, they are taking ages to regulate, but what I really like is that in the 19 years, I have been going there, I have been three times in a public audience in the Senate and the Congress, they really listen. I don’t know if they’re going to take into consideration what people are saying, but the industry goes, operators, suppliers and just having that opportunity to meet the future regulators and have those conversations about policy and the legislation is very positive. JK: One of the earlier panels focused on fines and the new Irish regulator will have the power to impose fines of up to €20 million or 10% of worldwide turnover. Brigitte, Jamie Nettleton was talking about AUS$ 450 million in fines which sounds like a large amount of money. Matthias is that the way to go? How do you react to that as a lawyer. I’m sure you have plenty of experience of a litigation process. MS: Maybe I can give a positive example so it’s not all bleak. In Germany our regulator has started a review of policies and I want to give this as a country example. Because clearly that’s not the way you achieve compliance of operators in an efficient way. Because of the corporate rules, most of the companies will be forced to litigate or have a review of the fine. So whilst you wait for a conclusion to this whole process, it takes time. The more efficient way is actually to speak to the industry. And just giving that positive example, what has worked out well, so far is this review process, because operators actually listen to what the regulator wanted to see, or they told us with, for example, like to have more
38
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker