No More Online Turks For Party Gaming

Published: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Online-Casinos.com

NO MORE ONLINE TURKS FOR PARTY GAMING

Major betting group withdraws its services to the Turkish online gambling market


Publicly listed online gambling group Party Gaming, has withdrawn online gambling services from subsidiaries such as Party Poker.com and Party Casino.com from the Turkish market in response to legislative developments in that country.

In a notice to the London stock exchange this week the company announces the move and claims that it "....has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that customers in Turkey are denied access to any of the group's gaming sites."

The group reassured investors that Turkish online gambling does not represent a significant portion of its revenues and the withdrawal will have little material impact on results.

Following the introduction of recent legislation which prohibits certain forms of online gaming from being offered by any unauthorised domestic or foreign company to citizens in Turkey, the e-wallet NETeller pulled out of the area and Austrian giant bwin announced a temporary withdrawal. Bwin said at the time it was pulling out of the Turkish market as a gesture of goodwill. The company generates around 6 percent of its gross gaming revenues from Turkey.

Turkey is not yet a full member of the European Union, although it has aspirations in that direction, and it could fall foul of the European Commission's determination to ensure safe and non-discriminatory freedom of trading in goods and services between member countries.

Gambling in the country is largely the preserve of the IDDAA in which government has a significant stake. Earlier this year Charlie McCreevy, head commissioner for the European Commission served notices on several EU European members that seek to ban foreign gambling from EU member states whilst allowing domestic and state involved action.