Nudging UK Government

Published: Sunday, June 18, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

NUDGING UK GOVERNMENT

Business body pushes on Internet gambling Summit


The UK government's suggestion that a high-level summit to thrash out regulation of the online gaming sector and ways to encourage operators to move their businesses onshore caused ripples of excitement in the industry when it was made public early this year, but it seems that so far little has been done to get things moving.

DCMS spokesmen said the list of who it was going to invite had not yet been finalised, and that no date had been set, but confirmed it would be mainly politicians.

The apparent lack of commitment to such a Summit saw the Business in Sport and Leisure industry group pressing for more attention this week, with CEO Brigid Simmonds, chief executive of industry group Business in Sport and Leisure (BiSL), hoping that any Summit invitation list would be widened to include representatives from the industry.

"The problem we have is how to get people to act responsibly and set up some sort of Gambling Commission kitemark," she told The Independent nerwspaper. "It's also about how we sort out the fiscal tax part to ensure that the gaming companies do come onshore.

"There will be politicians there but I cannot see how they can do it without the operators as well.

"It's about getting the players together with the Government, having a discussion about what the regime will be and how to attract them here."

Ms Simmonds added that she had contacted the DCMS last week to see if BiSL could help with the summit. She said that BiSL had been in regular contact with John Healy, the Treasury minister, about the tax issue.

There have also been concerns about punters running up debts on credit cards, as well as unscrupulous operators based in far-flung jurisdictions, and the impact of the confusion over the legality of gambling online in America.