BettingBusinessInteractive • SEPTEMBER 2011 EiG WILLIAM HILL ONLINE Huber to speak on Italian legislation
Willhelm Huber is head of international at William Hill Online and one of the speakers on the ‘Italy in the Spotlight’ which EiG organiser Clarion Events has put together in partnership with Business International. The session begins at 15.00 on the first day of EiG.
H
ow effective has AAMS and the Italian legislation been in preventing non-li- censed operators?
I think this should be seen from two angles. One is to prevent the advertising of non-li- censed operators and the other one is to block the access to non-licensed websites. In regards of advertising restrictions for non-licenses operators, this was highly ef- fective in all media except small independ- ently run websites (affiliates). Therefore the Italian law 401/89 was effective in pre- venting non-licensed operators to adver- tise in mass media in order reach relevant brand awareness and market share. However, on the side of ISP blocking the measures implemented by AAMS were less effective for those Italian customers who were actively seeking international opera- tors. The main reason why some Italian users were seeking foreign non-licensed operators were product limitations im-
posed to licensed operators by the regula- tor.
Therefore I believe that AAMS is on the right way by increasing the product range allowed within the Italian regulation and also by decreasing the tax rates on certain products (in particular for sports betting). This results in a more competitive domes- tic product which will considerably lower the desire of Italian users to actively seek the access to foreign non-licensed gaming and betting sites.
What will be the next opportunity for opera- tors in the Italian market? This opportunity is here right now. The in- troduction of licensed online casinos and cash poker will considerably reshape the Italian online gaming market. From an operator’s perspective there are still a lot of restrictions on the product side which actually prevent product innovation
from operator side. At the same time, I ac- knowledge that there are genuine efforts by AAMS to improve the product range and choice for Italian consumers.
Is there too much red-tape/regulation now? I would like to take this question from an Italian context to a European context. Cur- rently we see new regulations coming up in various markets like Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Germany, Poland, Denmark and several others. However, all these regula- tions were developed mainly from a do- mestic perspective and - at least in some markets - with the objective to protect cer- tain domestic operators.
As a result, we face different product limitations, technical requirements, li- cence requirements and taxation models in almost every newly regulated market. This requires every operator to put consider- able resources in place in order to comply
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with very different licence requirements and it effectively excludes smaller and medium sized operators from many of these markets.
This creates exactly the scenario which the free European market should actually overcome. Today, consumers in many regu- lated European markets face limited prod- ucts and less attractive prices (due to ex- cessive taxation in some jurisdictions). This also creates a market for non-licensed operators as some consumers will actively seek better alternatives.
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