888 chief Gigi Levy says US to limit egaming licenses post-UIGEA 08/07/2009

Jake Pollard

888’s Gigi Levy has predicted that America will remain protectionist and restrict egaming licences to US companies even if it does overturn UIGEA and liberalise.

The 888 chief executive, speaking today at the Gaming Executive Summit in Madrid, said: “The US will be protectionist even if it regulates, and its withdrawal from its GATS commitments means it doesn’t have to conform to any WTO regulation on internet gambling.

“There are five other states [with California] we know of that are considering regulating online poker, and we know the licences will go to US companies.” 

Levy was speaking alongside panellists including Bwin co-chief executive Norbert Teufelberger,  Playtech chief executive Mor Weizer and PartyGaming chief executive Jim Ryan as part of the Summit’s online debate.

As reported on EGRmagazine.com today, Party’s Jim Ryan predicted that media companies and monopolies will pose a bigger threat to operators than rivals when regulation allows them to.

The line between business-to-business and business-to-consumer models was also debated, with Norbert Teufelberger emphasising Bwin’s commitment to the latter. “We believe the B2C model is what operators should be striving for. We will only do B2B agreements with select partners, and we do this through our sports content, which is unrivalled in the industry,” he said.

All panellists agreed that the dot com model had now been replaced by a regional approach as individual countries drew up regulation that effectively ring-fenced their markets. Mor Weizer said that this had enabled Playtech to become the number three poker network in Italy as local brands looked to providers such as Playtech to provide egaming products.

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Posted: 08/07/2009