Gambling Legislations in Eastern & Western Europe – Part I

You have probably heard a lot over the past few years about the gambling legislations in different countries in Eastern Europe. Unlike countries in the Western Union which prefer to put their fight against compulsive gambling before revenue, many Eastern Europe governments came up with solid legislations meant to accurately and fairly tax and regulate the iGaming market of the respective country.

Back in 2011, The European Parliament rejected the proposal of ‘EU harmonization uniformly regulating the gambling sector’, with the ‘Resolution on Online Gambling in the internal market’ act, but promised to aid Member States in this department. One year later, the Commission adopted a communication ‘Towards a Comprehensive European Framework for Online Gambling’, which was meant to help protect users and prevent problem and underage gambling under the umbrella of the European Union, while not having an impact on the country’s iGaming legislation.

A significant difference between Western and Eastern Europe comes from the gambling revenue of each country in the continent for the past years and you should have guessed by now that Western Europe countries take the lead by far. According to newzoo.com, a great games market research site, Germany and the United Kingdom are leaders in this department, with around 3.5 billion dollars revenue for 2015, while Russia accounted for the highest revenue in Eastern Europe – a shy 1.2 billion dollars. What is interesting is that Romania, who only recently gave 13 gambling licenses in accordance with their new gambling legislation, is third in Eastern Europe with nearly half a billion dollars. Globally, China takes the crown, with a little over 22 billion dollars revenue for 2015, beating North America by around 1 billion dollars.