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Gambling regulators across Europe have held two separate conferences in the north and south of the continent over the past two weeks to share best practices and strengthen collaboration.
Portugal’s Gaming Regulation and Inspection Service (SRIJ) on September 19 hosted and chaired the European Gambling Regulators Meeting, which has been running for several years, featuring regulators from six of Europe’s largest gambling markets including Spain, France, Germany, Austria and the UK.
The SRIJ said the regulators shared information for “furthering the alignment of all jurisdictions’ strategies and actions”.
UK Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes said: “Many of the challenges are similar, and topics like illegal gambling, impacts of regulatory changes, emerging risks and various other things where the different countries co-operate [are] a great opportunity,” in a social media post on Friday (September 22).
A week prior to the meeting in Lisbon, the Lithuanian gambling regulator hosted its Baltic counterparts from Latvia, as well as representatives from Ukraine’s Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (KRAIL) for the first time since the annual meetings began in 2015.
Each of the regulators presented findings and recommendations from their supervisory work, with the Latvian regulator presenting plans for expected regulatory changes, according to a press release on Friday.
Latvia’s regulator also called on a collaborative agreement with KRAIL to tackle illegal gambling and improve information sharing.
Lithuania’s regulator shared information on the most common compliance violations it has observed, the complaints it has received and the action it has taken against illegal online operators.
“Special attention” was also paid to Lithuania’s gambling prevention work, anti-money laundering actions and match-fixing prevention efforts.
