First Shoe Drop – Greek Gambling Monopoly – GTECH

First of all, some of the background not featured in articles about Lottomatica/Gtech/SpieloG2/Finsoft, etc., is in the unsavory report section, which contains some comments about GTECH’s actions and inaction on cheating games provided by GTECH’s history-making onion peeling series or one of its wholly owned subsidiaries.

For some reason, Lotte Martica, a multibillion-dollar company, may find it difficult to study the issues involved, as it has continued to rename its subsidiaries and renamed itself one of its subsidiaries. If historical clarity is not needed, we will simply refer to the current official name, GTECH or GTECH SpA.

To get to the point faster, GTECH would like to confirm in May 2013 that Emma Delta joined Greek shipbuilder Melissanidis Group and Czech investor Jiri Smejc as holding a minority stake. Emma Delta Bought 33% Of Greek Government’s OPAP Stake. (Greek: ΟΠΑΠ – Οργανισμός Προγνωστικών Αγώνων Ποδοσφαίρου Α.Ε.) A public corporation based in Athens, Greece, exclusively operates and manages number draws and sports betting games in Greece. In other words, they put the brakes on the market. As soon as this deal is confirmed, lottery or sports betting in Greece must be made through the GTECH company. The last hurdle was resolved on July 30, 2013.

I’d love to. But this reviewer believes we’ve just seen the first time we’ve seen a tightening drop in the move to take full control of the online gambling market by a company that doesn’t act as if it believes in competition or a free market system. On July 31, we can see that the Greek government has released a blacklist of over 400 casinos. RGA, the world’s largest online gambling trade association, responded in a press release. This data challenges Greece’s threat to those with temporary gambling licenses by the RGA. 온라인카지노

The blacklist was expected, and in a 2012 RGA press release, it was announced that the RGA had filed a complaint with the European Commission. One element of the complaint was that planned blacklisting and subsequent market control measures through criminal law enforcement would expand OPAP monopoly to online gambling in direct violation of EU law.

Another element of the complaint is that the Greek Commission is failing to provide long-term licenses to online operators as promised, extending their OPAP monopoly until 2030. Although GTECH did not control the OPAP monopoly through Emma Delta when the Greek legislation in question became law, they took the lead in buying stakes in the Greek government when it acted as Lottomatica. Locking up gambling jurisdictions for 10, 20, or even 30 years is a well-known GTECH strategy – usually starting with state lottery sales controls and extending to “Lacino,” Indian games, or other de facto exclusives.

Greek regulations have introduced a wide range of enforcement measures, including blocking ISPs and payments, fines for banks and internet providers that encourage gambling, and fines for unlicensed operators.

Blacklist announcements and related links are currently available on the Hellenic Gaming Commission website (which will be available in English translation on the Chrome browser), and the blacklist will be available in PDF format.

It’s a little interesting that the list is published as an image PDF and cannot be retrieved except by the naked eye (or OCR), and the list is not alphabetically listed from beginning to end. Didn’t the Greeks invent the alphabet? It’s also a bit interesting that after 3 visual scans of the list, I didn’t find a casino that used GTECH (Boss Media) gaming software exclusively. Find casinoclub.com in the list or let me know if you know any other casinos that use GTECH games exclusively so I can update this article.

Interestingly we haven’t even seen bet365.gr and maybe they have an unannounced license. Temporary licences have been granted for some of the only gambling issues”.The gr” URL indicates that Bet365 is at least partially compliant with Greek legislation challenged by the RGA.

In fact, the list is full of names that don’t make any sense. Of course, blacklist Liberty slots because they don’t have Greek licenses. But it is absolutely absurd that there are 32 Red or Green on the list, including the Palace of Possibilities and their faults. He even registered a poker blog as a “criminal enterprise.” At least we are seeing incompetence.

Does anyone else find it interesting that this blacklist was issued the day after the last GTECH hurdle to control the Greek lottery market and sports betting market was announced? It’s no more interesting than GGC’s response to GTECH, which has delivered flawed games online for almost a decade. However, if anyone does, you should be wondering who holds the Greek online casino long-term certificate. And if it doesn’t exist or very little, you might wonder if the space will be filled with online “Lottery” games.

Online Greek player will say OPAP floods media with ads for gambling. I would also say that the game returns are between 40% and 60%, which is consistent with what American players get when they play lottery games. This is in stark contrast to what more than 95% of players usually enjoy online. No one knows what kind of player returns American players can get using their Spielo (GTECH) machines in Indian casinos, Lachino, or anywhere else outside Nevada, as these games are not regulated to guarantee minimum returns.

Players and other industry players should not take the latest Greek action regarding online gambling lightly as what is happening in a devastated economy that will never touch it. Most of the mechanisms we see (criminal law enforcement, long-term exclusive contracts for more than 20 years, and profit sharing from low RTP games) are common GTECH business tactics used in lottery and land casinos in the United States outside Nevada and New Jersey.