Gambling is big business in Greece

Greeks gambled a whopping 16 billion euros in 2007, both legally and illegally, in an attempt to improve their finances, according to the latest estimates of the national federation of bookmakers.

Statistics show that the annual gambling turnover - equal to approximately eight percent of Greece's GDP or larger than the market capitalisation of the Greek Telecom organisation (OTE) - has increased significantly over the past few years. Greeks gambled over 6.5 billion euros in 2005 and 9 billion the following year.

Greece's nine casinos said over 200,000 visitors gambled under their roofs in the last few days of December 2007 and the first days of January.

Greeks traditionally gamble more during the festive Christmas period and on New Year's Eve, but the explosion of internet gambling has triggered a year-round gaming frenzy.

State-sponsored gambling and casinos are responsible for more than half the 2007 turnover. Greeks plunged another seven billion euros into internet gambling.

According to a law that came into effect in August 2002, all electronic games involving betting are banned, including computer games. The law was introduced on the back of a public outcry, in spring 2002, following revelations about widespread illegal gambling in the country.

It was then also revealed that some gaming arcade owners had rigged their devices' software, converting them into gambling machines.

Facing lawsuits

Greece, one of the biggest gambling markets of the European Union, now faces legal action from several bookmakers who argue that the 2002 law may be in breach of European laws on free movement of services. The European Commission also warned the Greek government of this through letters to the foreign ministry.

Not only does the law restrict the size of the gambling market, but those who oppose it say it also upholds a national gambling monopoly enjoyed by the Soccer Pools & Lottery Organisation (OPAP). That monopoly, not unique in the EU, may only be retained if it serves the public good of reducing the social ills associated with gambling.

"Lawsuits by foreign bookmakers against Greece are still pending at the European Court of Justice and should the companies win, the law has to change," said George Nouskalis, law professor at Aristoteleio University of Thessaloniki.

"Things look rather gloomy for Greece on that front as the European Court of Justice ruled in March 2007 that national licensing procedures cannot be applied in a de facto discriminatory manner against foreign gaming operators," added Nouskalis referring to the ruling in the Placanica case, in Italy.

The ruling in that case, in which Italian suppliers of gambling services for British bookmaker Stanley International Betting Ltd faced criminal prosecution in Italy for operating without a licence, rocked those opposed to open and regulated gambling environments, as the European Court of Justice issued its most forceful opinion covering the cross-border provision of gaming services.

Stanley, the fourth largest bookmaker in the United Kingdom, operates a network of data transmission centres, which are terminals that allow a customer to access Stanley's main server and place wagers remotely. In 1999, when the Italian government issued 1,000 gaming licences, Stanley chose not to apply, due to the restrictions against corporate licensure.

Italian legislation regarding online gambling, introduced in 1999, prohibited companies from obtaining gaming licences if all the shareholders in the company could not be ascertained, which made it impossible, in practical terms, for any publicly listed company to obtain a licence.

The defendants in Placanica operated an unlicensed data transmission centre in Italy and, after prosec