Ladbrokes: EU Advocate General E-Gaming Opinion Unfavorable, by Ulrika Lomas, LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels
Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Ladbrokes plc has criticized the European Advocate General's opinion as being unfavorable as regards its case against Dutch gaming law.

In a statement, Ladbrokes said it had been appealing an injunction imposed by the Dutch courts that prevented it from accepting bets from Dutch citizens on its website since 2002. In June last year, a Dutch court sought guidance from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The Advocate General, Yves Bot, said the Netherlands policy may be justified on the basis that its purpose is to protect consumers, especially juveniles, against gambling addiction. The betting license could be a monopoly, such as the Dutch operator De Lotto, Bot said.

Previous EU court rulings indicated that national gambling restrictions were justified to meet policy goals, such as combating fraud and gambling addiction. The opinion is not binding on the ECJ, which will give a ruling on the case next year.

Ladbrokes' Managing Director of Remote Betting and Gaming, John O'Reilly, commented:

"The opinion given by the Advocate General seems to assume the Dutch courts have already applied a full test of whether the introduction of new games and advertising by the Dutch monopoly constitutes an excessive enticement to gamble."

"However, the Dutch courts have applied no such test – a point we made clearly in the pleadings. We continue to believe that the ECJ should uphold principles of free and fair competition across borders as there is no logic in the fact that the Dutch monopoly could freely compete against us in the UK but we are prevented from accepting bets from any Dutch resident that finds us on the Internet."

Ladbrokes also stated that the opinion from the Advocate General did not correctly interpret EU law because it suggested that as long as a member state asserted that its legislation was intended to prevent any incitement to gamble or prevent fraud, it was not necessary to produce any evidence to support these assertions.