Introduction
Most online casinos have grown in line with the internet: thanks to technological advances and an increasingly powerful network, casinos have also been able to expand as a result, becoming real gambling monsters capable of competing and overcome the physical gambling halls.
Although the network is synonymous with freedom, soon the legislators of all the countries of the world, including Italy, had to deal with online betting and start to put in place adequate measures to regulate this particular market.
Let’s take a look at the phenomenon, highlighting how regulation has affected the growth and development of online casinos.
The regulation
As anticipated, all countries in the world have had to take steps to regularize the world of online gambling, in the same way as they have dealt with the issue of physical casinos and gambling halls in the area for decades.
The regulation of gambling, especially online gambling, changes a lot depending on the laws of the various countries, so we will be faced with different situations. Let’s look at some examples.
Italian regulations
Italy boasts one of the best regulations in the world. Thanks to the ADM (formerly AAMS), a document of over 100 pages of requirements has been drafted, which every online casino must meet in order to obtain a license to operate on Italian soil.
The ADM license, which online casinos can obtain through a call and later after paying a figure of around € 350,000, is an essential requirement to be able to offer their games to a people of bettors like the Italians.
The license was established through several steps, already in 2008 the online poker market was regulated. Only in 2011, however, did the decisive blow come: all casinos without a license and the essential requirements to operate in Italy have been permanently closed by ADM.
There has been and still is a real fight against irregular operators, so much so that every year ADM continues to close hundreds of non-standard sites.
In addition to this, at some point in 2018, to combat the phenomenon of gambling and child gambling, lawmakers have also pledged to counter the advertising of casino operators, although this decree was revised the following year because in It also went against the interests of the state, which in any case receives millions of tax revenue from gambling.
In general, since the introduction of the ADM license, online gaming has grown strongly in Italy. Both operators and bettors feel more protected and this has made a decisive contribution to the relaunch of gambling in Italy.
Germany
The situation in Germany is very different. Until recently, German regulations imposed severe restrictions on online gambling, especially casinos and poker. Until mid-2021, only online betting could be made in Germany, but later this country also opened up to casinos, poker and in general to all online gambling.
However, as ADNKRONOS also testifies, there are still strong limits that in fact do not make gambling take off in Germany: maximum bet ceiling of € 1, no jackpot, maximum deposit of € 1000, no advertising in the morning.
The Netherlands
Here, too, the situation is more like Germany than Italy. In 2021, a law came into force that opens more to online casinos, introducing different licenses depending on whether the operator wants to open poker or casino games or sports betting.
The body that regulates the market is the KSA, which has introduced licenses from € 45,000 (however, at a much lower cost than in Italy). Only operators with strong financial guarantees can operate in these countries, so if we want the players are extremely protected.
In Denmark
The Danes were the first to introduce the self-exclusion system, allowing gambling sufferers to control their problems. It has also introduced an application that allows the player to monitor at all times the bets made, winnings and even losses, in order to make fans even more aware of the economic risk.
In general, therefore, Denmark has excellent protection for bettors and is a model for all other countries.
Switzerland
Switzerland would expect a wide opening to online gambling, but all online betting is banned. Gambling can only be played in land-based casinos, obviously to protect the historic casinos that have been operating for years in Lugano and other Swiss cantons.
Rest of the World
There are countries where online gambling is banned, which is in fact illegal. Examples include North Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and Brunei.
In the United States, however, the situation is hybrid: there are states that have legalized online gambling and others that instead ban it. In Canada, however, it is illegal, but the legislation is not yet clear. As in the United States, there are some provinces in India where gambling is tolerated, while in many others it is illegal.
Conclusions
Regulation greatly affects the growth and development of online casinos. On the one hand we have countries that use the laws to safeguard players against gambling and child gambling, on the other hand countries like Italy that have heavily regulated the industry but have also reassured players and open to all online casinos in order , allowing the growth of the market.
Then there are situations like the one in Switzerland, where online gambling does not take off precisely because of very strict laws in favor of physical gambling.
