Liberalising Gambling Markets: Lessons from Network Industries?

This paper, based on my concluding remarks at the “Colloquium on the Economic Aspects of Gambling Regulation: EU and US Perspectives” held at Tilburg in November 2006, discusses the question why, in Europe, some service sectors (such as network industries) are liberalised, while others (like the gambling sector) are not. In both, the discussion appears to be one-sided. In the former, the focus is on consumer benefits, where in the latter, only the possible consumer harm associated with liberalisation is discussed. A proper balancing of costs and benefits can, and should, be subsumed under the ECJ’s proportionality test, as formulated in Gambelli. If this more economic approach is taken, the result might very well be less restrictive policy towards gambling and games of chance.