In order to see a liberalised European market, the debate between legislators and gaming companies needs to change, Mark Davies, managing director of Betfair, told those attending the Third Annual Legal Gaming in Europe Summit 2009.
“I think if we are to get liberalisation in Europe in the way that the industry wants it, we need to change the language of the debate and, more difficult than that, we need to see our opponents change the language of their debate,” Davies commented.
“At the moment it is quite clear to me that neither of us is getting very far and we’ve been having the same conversations for rather a long time.”
Davies claimed that while gambling-related problems are obvious, thrashing out a deal between the industry and legislators is far from straightforward.
“People are using arguments that they know will resonate in particular areas to hijack the whole debate,” he explained. “If you have a conversation about any one particular part of anything, because you start to win one argument they’ll hit you with another that you’ve already dealt with somewhere else.
“The challenge in the gambling industry is in breaking that cycle.”
