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In Europe, the need for online gambling regulation resulted in the formation of gambling commissions in Alderney, Malta, Gibraltar, Sweden and the Isle of Man. Each of these regulatory bodies has their own laws which are being updated when needed.
The new legislation will divide the market into a restricted and a competitive sector. The restricted sector will include land-based bingo and casinos, gaming machines, and land-based and online lotteries, while the competitive will include online casinos, bingo, betting, poker, horse-racing and land-based sports betting. It will ask companies who are licensed to pay 18% tax on gross gaming revenue, while companies that organize gambling for non-profit purposes will have to pay 0%.
Six types of licenses will be offered which will vary in price, including licenses for state-owned games, betting, public purpose games, cruise ship games and commercial land-based games. However, the most important change is that the games of chance for which no purchase is necessary for the player to enter or win something will not require a license. Moreover, the age limit for land-based casinos will be 21+, while for online casinos will be 18+.
The new legislation will thus help to provide a safer market, improved client protection, and stronger security. The new Swedish law, contrary to the new regulatory developments in the USA, explicitly approves of and will control online gambling.
While most of the European countries allow casino gambling and sports betting, in most of the states in the USA gambling is banned. Luckily for players who have shown interest in the legalization of sports betting, things are changing. Several states have passed a bill to legalize sports betting within their borders.
In the USA, for instance, sports betting has so far been allowed in four states only. As you may have assumed, one of these states is Nevada, but Delaware, Oregon, and Montana have also legalized it a few years back. However, the US Supreme Court made a decision this spring to remove the federal ban for placing wagers in 3 other states West Virginia, Mississippi, and Rhode Island, while Pennsylvania and New York are expected to join in 2019. Unfortunately, this decision does not imply that online sports betting will become legalized as well in each of these states.
