It is important for those engaged in online gambling on a regular basis to be aware of the legal developments in the field. The situation in Europe is very interesting. The European Union mandates a uniform flow of goods and services through the member nations. The services include online gambling. Based on this mandate, the leading online gambling operators have been pressing the European Commission very hard to enforce a common regulatory mechanism across Europe. However, the European Commission has not been able to make any headway because national governments want to retain total control over online gambling. In this regard, the European countries can be divided into two groups. The countries in the first group allow private online gambling operators to provide services though under strict regulation. In the second group only the state owned monopolistic gambling operators are permitted to function and private operators are being kept out.

United Kingdom was the first country to allow private operators to function in a manner regulated by the government. Online gambling is legal under the Gambling Act 2005 and is regulated by the Gambling Commission. As of now gambling operators licensed by certain approved offshore jurisdictions are also allowed to operate in the United Kingdom. But changes are being contemplated in the Gambling Act. If these changes are enacted then these offshore operators will have to obtain a secondary license from the Gambling Commission. There is also a move to tax all profits generated from servicing British online players, irrespective of where the operator is located.

Italy legalized and regulated online gambling in 2009. The regulatory body AAMS oversees the industry, issuing licenses to private operators and monitoring compliance. Unlike the United Kingdom Italy started with only a few verticals like poker tournaments, skill games, fixed odds sports betting and bingo. Online poker cash games were introduced in February 2011 and online casino gambling, excepting online slots, in June 2011. The online gambling growth in 2012 was not as expected and therefore Italy allowed operators to offer online slots in order to draw traffic.

France opened up to legalized private online gambling operators in April 2010. ARJEL was the regulatory authority. France went in for even more restricted choice of product verticals, which were sports betting, horse racing and poker. France levies tax on gross turnover and not on profits, and this is another big disadvantage of its system. Many leading European online gambling operators have stayed away from France. Spain entered the regulated online gambling arena in June 2012. It has had a successful run and the online gambling operators are also happy. The Spanish regulator has recently announced its intent to add more products.

Germany and Greece are the countries that are persisting with restricting online gambling services to state owned operators. The reasons given for adopting this model is that it is necessary to prevent online gambling addiction, known as problem gambling. They argue that private operators would attract more and more players into the online gambling web to increase their profits, including those who could not afford to do so. This view is being challenged by the European online gambling operators in the courts within the country and in the European Court of Justice.