Gambling f irms warn new laws will make for a €1bn mafia-style black market
THE gambling sector is warning that tough new laws will create a €1billion mafia-style black market.
The Government is reaching the final stages of its plan to set up a regulatory body to impose the strict new rules.
These include restrictions on advertising, and limiting wins from private lotteries, bingo, and other games to as little as €3,000.
The Gambing Regulation Bill will also set up a powerful new Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland to monitor player protection measures, money laundering and the self-exclusion database.
Irish multinational bookmaker Flutter Entertainment, which owns Paddy Power, announced profits of more than €1billion in its latest accounts.
But an increasing number of betting industry sources, citing the experience in other European countries, say Ireland is in danger of creating ‘a mafia style black-market’.
In a hard-hitting response to the claims, James Browne, Minister of State at the
Department of Justice, said: ‘Gambling in Ireland is currently the Wild West.’ He added: ‘Proposed Government legislation will bring law and order to an unregulated industry. It will also address the many damaging social and health consequences suffered by people from unregulated gambling, while protecting children from gambling campaigns.’ However, he added that ‘safe and regulated gambling will continue’. But Mike Kirwan, the vice president of Lottoland, which offers betting on different national lottery results, said the limits would prompt Irish people to use unlicensed businesses that provide no customer protections.
He said: ‘Ireland may be sleepwalking into creating a huge move into the black market.’ He said that while ‘the scale of such a market cannot be fully judged, anything between €750million to €1.5billion could be involved’.
He warned the Bill may end up ‘stoking harmful gambling’ as well as removing protections should the industry go underground’.
Mr Kirwan said: ‘The Government
is in danger of inadvertently, for the best reasons, creating a scenario where gambling goes underground into an unregulated mafia-style black-market.’
According to industry sources, 6,500 people are employed in the sector and it contributes €135million each year in taxes.
In a submission on the Bill, Lottoland claimed: ‘The UK’s Gaming and Betting Council research found that the UK black market for gambling had doubled in size in the past two years.
‘Norway, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Sweden have all seen growth of between 20% and 66% of market share being operated by the black market since consumers’ ability to gamble with regulated entities was limited.’
The Bill is being reviewed by the Attorney General.
FF and FG back-benchers have also expressed unease, with one source saying: ‘It is a political powder keg.’ A Fine Gael source said: ‘We are being very polite with our Fianna Fáil friends but we won’t oversee the collapse of the horse-racing industry.’
Malta has referred the Bill to the European Commission internal market directorate with the claim that it may breach European law by threatening ‘the freedom to provide services’.
The submission argues Ireland has not provided adequate justification for the restrictions, either in the Bill or in an impact assessment of the provisions.
It warns restrictions will send players to bet in the black market ‘therefore not satisfying the objective of consumer protection’.
‘Gambling in Ireland is the Wild West’