As for Denmark, the country had already allowed online gambling in January 2010 when the state-owned Danske Spil signed a deal with gambling giant Party Gaming. However the nation welcomed foreign online gambling operators only on the 1st of July this year. Foreign operators will now be able to apply for Danish gambling licenses. For now online casinos and poker room operators can offer their services in Denmark. Online bingo and online sports betting have still not been legalized.

Gambling licenses don’t come very cheap though. The licenses will cost operators €140,000 a piece and the operators will also have to fulfill a few conditions. One of the conditions is that the gambling operators must have an office in Denmark. Secondly the operators must use a reporting system that complies with Danish tax laws. The tax that online gambling operators must pay is roughly 20% of gross revenues.

The legalization of online gambling and the welcoming of foreign operators by the Danish government really set an example for other nations that are still unsure about how to handle the online gambling industry.

The French recently got their heads around the legalization of online gambling, but are concerned about the safety of internet gambling and gambling addictions and hence their bright new idea.

According to this legislation a player must apply in writing to the French Ministry of the Interior and hand in the application in person. The government will then enforce a three year ban on the player from online gambling and brick and mortar gambling. The ban once enforce cannot be lifted until the end of three years.

But hasn’t it occurred to the people who created this legislation that addiction is a condition where people are unaware and not in control of their behavior? I don’t think and addict would just walk up to the Ministry one day and say “Hi I’m a gambling addict. I’d like you to ban me from gambling for three years please. That ought to teach me a lesson.”

It’s only players who are perhaps recovering from addiction who would perhaps even consider something like this. They are aware and this ban would help them gain more self discipline. The relatives and friends can’t apply for the addict in need of help. Even if they did have that kind of facility it would involve a whole lot of issues relating to civil liberties and the likes.

Although the idea behind this banning legislation is for the betterment of and safety of French gamblers, the legislation looks a lot better on paper than in real life.

The court stated that since there was no direct communication between the customer and the online casino operator, it would lead to increased risks of fraud by the operators against the players. I’m not sure that this is quite true.

The issue first came to light when De Lotto, the strongest lottery service in the Dutch market, charged Ladbrokes and Betfair with providing illegal online sports betting to Dutch consumers.

The group of eight leading European online gaming operators constituting the non-profit organization the EGBA (European Gaming and Betting Association), stated that the internet was raising questions that could not be resolved by the judicial process.

EGBA Secretary General Sigrid Lignà stated that it was the duty of the European legislator to ensure that the IT-based medium which allowed for the highest security standards demanded consistent customer protection and fraud control throughout the EU.

Consumer rights group Right2Bet was against the decision for the ban. The group stated that the ECJ was out of touch with modern day consumers and that it came to its conclusion without any evidence.

The EU has been constantly trying to legalize gambling throughout the European Union. This ban has taken the efforts towards legalization of online gambling a huge step backwards. Time will tell of the fruits of the battle. The EU will just have to wait and see if the fruits of the battle will be sweet or sour.

The Pompey who have been in the news for the wrong reasons during this year, due to the club’s huge debit and eventual relegation from the Premier League, went into the match 12/1 underdogs at William Hill Sports, against Chelsea 1/6. Didier Drogba was favorite to score first with Ladbrokes offering 11/4 odds. I wonder how many fans put a few bucks on him?

Sevilla are geared to go into the final of Span’s Copa Del Rey, and are scheduled to pay as slight favorites. William Hill is offering 4/7 odds on the four time champions, while Atlético Madrid is only a slight underdog at 5/4. Bayern Munich plays the first of two big games in the German Cup final, when it takes on Werder Bremen. Munich, which plays Inter Milan in the UEFA champion’s league final this weekend, are the German Cup favorites, 5/6 at Ladbrokes, ahead of Bremen who are 13/5.

So it is ‘make hay while the sun shines’ for all you sports bettors out there who are waiting with bated breath for the European Cup finals which is soon to be played in Madrid. I think Inter-Milan will defeat Bayern Munich.

The 22-year old had eight goals in this season’s Champions League; at that stage Skybet had closed its book on the Rosario, taking the top goal scorer prize. The amazing thing is that Messi is just 22, and his best days are still ahead of him.

In the race to win the Champions League this season, Skybet had hacked Barcelona’s odds from 11/8 to 10/11, which would result in the Spanish giants becoming the first club in the history of football, to win two European titles in succession. Inter-Milan might have something to say about that since they are 3-1 up after the first leg of the semi-final.

Messi, the unstoppable Argentinean who went right into the game having hit three hat-tricks in 2010, scored another in a space of 21 minutes in Tuesday’s quarter-final second leg and is 8/1 with Skybet to net another treble in Europe this season. Its 20/1 that he bags another three goals at the Bernabéu in Saturday’s ‘El Clásico. In the Champions League outright wagering, Barça have been cut to 10/11 (from 11/8) to be the first team to hold onto the title. With the excitement at its peak and Messi in full form its left to be seen, what turn the game will take and what the spectators and bettors are in for!

An ironical situation has surfaced for the French football club Olympique Lyonnais, which has been sponsored by Betclic. In a Champion’s League game to be played in Madrid, Olympique Lyonnais, has been forbidden from sporting the Betclic log on its shirts. Its rivals are Real Madrid who will be displaying the Logo of Bwin, a major opponent of Betclic. While Spain allows private online gambling operators to sponsor football teams, Real Madrid has no problem, but France does not do so!

The irony is that the UEFA which is the governing body of football in Europe, had given Olympique Lyonnais the green signal to display the Betclic logo on away matches outside France, till the end of 2009. It was anticipated that the French legalization of online gambling would be in place by the beginning of 2010 and Betclic would be licensed by the French Government to engage in Internet gambling in France. But the French legalization is yet to come through and because France says that the legalization is pending, UEFA is not restoring the permission. As a result both Olympique Lyonnais and Betclic have been left in a helpless situation.

A similar situation has also surfaced in Poland where Unibet, the Swedish online gaming operator had a running sponsorship agreement with the Polish Football Federation. Unibet was the official sponsor of the Polish second division football association. In January 2010, Poland’s new anti-online gambling law became effective. All forms of gambling, except those from land-based casinos are banned and gambling companies are forbidden from advertising their brands. This in effect means that Unibet cannot have its branding in the football stadiums and on the television screens. The development will come as a hammer blow to the association, its clubs and their supporters, who are now being deprived of their chance to earn the type of money required if Polish football, was to progress and salvage a sure footing in the global game.

Barnier, after he assumed office, emphatically told the European Parliament last week that Bwin/Santa Casa had little bearing on the Commission’s attempt to violate procedures against member states, and vowed to follow non-compliance on a case-to-case basis. Barnier mentioned to parliamentarians that the Santa Casa declaration of September 2009 was based on reflections which were specific to Portugal and its national monopoly operator, Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa. Since the verdict does not fundamentally alter the Commission’s approach towards violating procedures, Barnier mentioned that the Commission would go ahead with examining the compliance of national legislation, on a case-to-case basis.

The European Gaming and Betting Association, which signified Europe’s leading regulated online casino gambling operators, expressed their strong support for the Commissioner, and his decisions to engage in a broad discussion with stakeholders. The EGBA welcomed the view of having a Commission Green Paper on gambling, like online casino roulette, a move which would really put to test the interest and the support of the European Parliament and Member States for future EU synchronization in the sector.

With several member states currently improving their gaming and wagering legislation, this is an important confirmation that the Commission will not stand by, while Member states bring in restrictions that work against basic principles of the European Union.

With effect from the beginning of the year, the Government has proposed to allow Estonian players to gamble on the internet at online casinos thanks to a regulation that is expected to help national difficult public finances through a particular taxation imposed on gambling operators.

With the recession down to about 36% and the vital need to find new sources of revenue, the liberalization created by the government will come into force in 2011 when the Estonian market will be available to international gaming operators who are able to fulfill the requirements set by the public authority.

As for 2010, Estonia will be lawfully approved to play only on national-gaming platform as the one established by Olympic Casino group and created by one of the most popular software companies of the industry, Playtech gaming software.

The Executive Manager of Playtech Mr. Mor Weizer stated that they were extremely happy of this opportunity to begin their partnership with Olympic Casino group as the top leading casino gaming providers in Central and Eastern Europe. He also commented that the chosen strategy of Playtech to focus its attention on well licensed and regulated markets and provide the best technological solutions to the companies functioning on those markets has once again proved quite successful as can be seen from this contract.

With the enforcement of the new Act about online gambling, Estonia was put into line with its fellow European countries like Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Poland and The Netherlands where governments have decided to get money from gambling taking on the ad-hoc legislation on the subject and setting up their markets with precise rules against corruption and money laundering.

Live dealer online casinos are a simple concept and online casinos use webcams so players can view their live dealers for blackjack games and other card games. The border of the casino will amend some, but the rules will remain the same. Since many players are not very comfortable with subjecting their cash to the possibility of a random number generator, the live dealer games will offer players an alternative.

Playtech online casinos are one of the biggest providers of casino games with live dealers, but as of now only EU nations are allowed to play these games. There are, although few and far between, a tiny number of live dealer casinos for US players, though the step has not yet been as successful as many players would like it to be.

In the future months, the hope of the UIGEA being annulled has become a reality. Only time will tell how the legislation begins to change, even if the UIGEA is rejected, some of the former US casino operators may make a return to the gaming market. This includes Microgaming and Playtech, two of the greatest supporters of online casino gambling, as well as PartyGaming - one of the biggest publicly traded gambling companies on the Internet.

The French government plans to legalize and license internet gambling operators which offer sporting bets, online casinos, horse racing and poker and it has already been permitted by MPs in the National Assembly. However, it is not possible to pass the board until the latter part of March next year and it will be in full effect after at least three months.

People anticipated that legislation would come into effect in time for June’s sporting contests, which would become a great money making event hiking tax revenue for the country, but it now looks doubtful.

The proposed law will let web companies to acquire a license to operate in France, even if they already have licenses in other EU countries. At the moment, Française des Jeux, PMU and casinos can officially offer gambling services.

The French government hopes that legalizing online gambling will make the issue against money laundering easier and will keep under aged players out of the market and will safeguard consumers from addiction.

Senator François Trucy has stated that parts of the law could be redrafted because people felt that it did not go to the extent of giving health bodies the advantage to treat and avoid addiction.