BWIN EXEC POSITIVE ON EUROPEAN ONLINE GAMBLING

16 November 2007

More legal certainty could be achieved as early as next spring


A Bwin executive with more than a passing knowledge of the draconian approach of France to online gambling said in an interview this week that he is optimistic about growing liberalisation in European Union nations.

Norbet Teufelberger was on the unpleasant end of French officialdom earlier this year when he and a fellow executive of the company were detained by French police for involvement in a football and advertising sponsorship with a Monaco team, so he has a personal as well as business understanding of the French approach.

Nevertheless, Teufelberger believes that European countries including France could step out on a path towards liberalising online gambling by next spring, creating more legal certainty in the business. And if a major nation like France took the lead in opening up its Internet betting market to other EU nations, it could start a landside in liberalising the Euro 3 billion ($4.4 billion) online gambling market in Europe.

"There are many signals," says the chief of the Vienna listed Bwin. "Who would have thought six months ago that France would move politically? There is movement now."

"We hope that we will have more clarity in a few months. There won't be a solution yet, but I think one can have a feeling for the direction this is going to take," he said.

Bwin and other online betting groups are lobbying for a deal with European countries under which state monopolies for lotteries would stay, but betting and gambling would be opened for commercial operators.

"There won't be a European Union-wide solution (in spring), but in individual countries," he said. "The UK already has a solution. Our goal is to find one in one or several major countries. If that's going to happen, there will be a landslide."

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