Sweden Can Ban Online Gambling
An old online gambling case came up for hearing in Sweden and the verdict from the European Union Court of Justice was that Sweden can ban online gambling. The issue had its genesis in the Swedish lottery law, which bans the promotion of online gambling by private gaming operators from other European Union countries. In 2004 the Swedish news papers, Expressen and Aftonbladet, had published advertisements from foreign online gambling operators. The Swedish authorities enforced the lottery law and imposed a fine of 50,000 Swedish crowns on the newspapers. The publishers went to the court in appeal against this decision.
Last week the Swedish court took up the matter. The court referred the issue to the European Union Court of Justice seeking whether the Swedish lottery law was compatible with European Union law on service provisions and games of chance. The EU Court opined that a member state could ban online gambling for cultural, moral or cultural reasons. Hence Sweden’s lottery laws were held consistent with the European Union policy. The EU Court however said that Sweden could not discriminate against foreign gaming operators by imposing harsher penalties on them. The punishment meted out to foreign and domestic operators had to be the same.
This is the second instance of the European Union Court of Justice deciding that member countries can prevent private operators from entering online gambling. Last month it had issued a similar pronouncement when the Dutch court had asked for its opinion. At that time the reasons cited for upholding the local laws were prevention of fraud and addiction to gambling.
