Exclusive: Morten Rønde new DOGA chief executive
Danish Gambling Authority's long-serving legal advisor departs to take charge of newly formed lobby group - confirms Danske Spil as latest member.
Former legal advisor to the Danish Gambling Authority (DGA) Morten Rønde has been appointed as the chief executive of the newly-formed Danish Online Gambling Association (DOGA), eGaming Review can exclusively reveal.
Rønde left his position as legal advisor on Tuesday after 11 years with the DGA to join the Remote Gambling Association-backed lobby group, whose formation was announced last week. Its founding members are Unibet, Bet365, Betfair and Sportingbet, with former Danish monopoly Danske Spil the latest operator to join. The organisation will have its inaugural meeting on 29 November to finalise the group’s structure and by-laws.
To avoid any conflict of interest, Rønde had no involvement in the licensing process after submitting his resignation on 17 October, the deadline for the first wave of applications.
Speaking to eGR Rønde described the association as being “”¦ run by the members, for the members. Currently I am the only full-time employee in the administration, but I will be in constant dialogue with the members to confirm my responsibilities and the organisation’s scope.”
DOGA’s board will be made up of representatives from the founding member operators.
The organisation’s proposed remit is to work with the DGA to expand on the measures put in place in order to combat fraud and money laundering in the current legislation and following the market opening on 1 January next year. Forty-three companies are known to have applied for 68 licences with the regulator due to announce which operators have been successful on 15 December.
DOGA will also work towards creating uniform technical standards across all European markets, as well as establishing relationships with gambling addiction centres, and as a result, will look to work with operator organisations across Europe.
“We are an independent body, but we will be looking to cooperate with different organisations such as the RGA, as some of the DOGA founders are already part of RGA. This is one of the reasons why they employed me, as I have a massive network of people that I work with outside of Denmark in the European Union and in other member states, and I am going to make use of that.”
While it was revealed last week that the organisation was in discussions with several other potential new members, only Danske Spil has so far confirmed its membership. “We will be looking to get other members in, but it is at a time before licenses have been issued, so some operators are waiting to see if they get a license before joining,” Rønde added.