William Hill announces Greece withdrawal
Operator joins Betfair in exiting the market ahead of tomorrow's deadline.
William Hill has become the latest operator to exit the Greek egaming market, announcing on its Greek-language website that it will pull out of the jurisdiction by 11:59pm tonight.
The Greek Gambling Commission has warned of potential legal action against operators that fail to comply with the country’s controversial online gambling legislation unless they withdraw from the market before midnight tonight.
Last August the country passed a law to licence and regulate egaming with 24 brands agreeing to pay tax and two years worth of back tax under an interim arrangement. Among the handful of large businesses to do this was Sportingbet, that has considerable market share there and Paddy Power, that despite not having a Greek language website, agreed to pay a small fee in order to obtain a licence.
However the 24 sites agreed to pay tax before it emerged that monopoly OPAP was granted the exclusive rights to operate 13 games of chance in Greece until 2030 as well as to operate 35,000 video lottery terminals until 2022.
Last week Betfair announced its exit explaining it was awaiting greater clarity on the situation and that it continues to work with lobby group the Remote Gambling Association (RGA) “To achieve legislation that allows fair competition in the market.”
The RGA has repeatedly questioned the compliance of Greek egaming proposals with EU law, suggesting the current proposals are “unfair” and “unworkable” and contacting privatisation agency the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF) with its concerns about the proposed sale of a government stake in gaming monopoly OPAP.
Citing OPAP’s alleged “retroactive” claims to a monopoly on certain products, the RGA argues: “There can be no other conclusion that this is a misguided attempt to ignore EU principles of law in order to boost the value of the 34% of OPAP”.
The privatisation fund, however yesterday rejected the RGA’s calls for the Greek regulator to prevent tomorrow’s blacklist deadline from taking place.
The RGA lodged an injunction in the Greek courts yesterday in an attempt to prevent the government from enforcing financial and potentially also criminal charges on operators that have opted to remain in the country without paying tax.
A spokesman for the RGA said he was “realistic” that this may, in the short-term, be too late, but that there remained the possibility that a judge could be found to cover the complaint and decide on whether or not implemantation should be postponed.