Home / Poker News August 2014 / Free Online Poker Market to Shrink Further with Likely Swiss Regulation
Free Online Poker Market to Shrink Further with Likely Swiss Regulation
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2014-08-20 04:55
Switzerland is apparently looking to join the list of countries which have enacted various laws to regulate their online gambling/poker markets, effectively locking out international operators and eventually choking the life out of the potentially lucrative activity.
The Conference of the Cantonal Directors in Charge of Gambling and Lotteries has apparently already set its objectives in regards to regulation and they’re apparently quite flexible in this respect, as long as the said regulation does not involve “excessive” liberalization. By avoiding “excessive” liberalization, the Swiss authorities obviously mean locking every operator out of their market, with the exception of local brick and mortar casinos, who are inexperienced, often simply un-popular and thusly hardly qualified to make anything of the opportunities tossed into their laps by the authorities. This same approach (or rather, a much more “liberalized” version of it) has failed miserably in France, Spain and possibly even in Italy, so the chances of its success in Switzerland’s much smaller market are practically non-existent.
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By all indications, such a set of measures will likely result in the decline and eventual marginalization of
online poker/gambling in the country.
The fact that the CDCM does not view the online environment as a new market, but rather as an additional medium through which licensed companies can distribute services already available is a grievous mistake. On the other hand, the CDCM is also right to consider that land-based operators shouldn’t be penalized for having stuck with the rules as others were breaking them.
Whether the introduction of a new sort of licenses for online games would actually hurt land-based operators though is up for debate. Sure, they haven’t been able to develop a cutting-edge online product due to restrictions, but that is only one facet of a larger set of problems that will – for the foreseeable future – render these operators completely irrelevant in the online sphere, regardless of the level of protection they receive.
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