New Austrian gambling law

In the late evening of the 16th of June the new amendment of the Austrian gambling Law was adopted by the parliament.

After nearly 2 years of delays and discussions about the details and quality of the draft, it was hastily approved by a majority of 4 of the 5 political parties, because of the feared judgment of the ECJ in the Austrian „Engelmann“ case, C-64/08.

It is expected, that the court in Luxembourg will decide, that the prolongation, without public tender, of the 6 Austrian Casino licenses in January 1998, the prolongation of the other 6 Casino licenses in January 2001, as well as the issue of the Lottery license (6 of 45, Toto, Bingo, Scratchcards etc.) and its license extensions, for winwin, win2day, tipp3, by simple rulings of the Ministry of Finance in October 1997, was unlawful.

Therefore all those licenses could soon be subject to EU wide public tender, which to the annoyance of the local parties and friends involved, inevitably has to be done in accordance to the relevant EU regulations.

The new 2010 part of the amendment is presently being notified at the TRIS in Brussels since April. The standstill period expires on 16th of July 2010. However, small, last minute, changes, in the 2010 part of the gambling law  enacted yesterday, might influence the validity of the version presented to TRIS.

The effect of the new law, which will become effective 1st of January 2011, will be the extinction of about 95% of the existing concessionaires and operating companies ( over 1300 mostly small and very small companies with over 10.000 people expecting unemployment) in Austria within the next 3 to 4 years in favour of aprx. 15 to 20 new concessionaires under excessive rules and regulations.

For instance: any company applying for one of the new licenses may not have an owner with more than a 25 % share in the company.