Bulgaria Govt Gives Green Light to Online Gambling

Does any one know if there is a "typical" way that gambling is dealt with Western Europe? I mean is it usually heavily regulated, banned, or totally permissible? I am only familiar with the States.

a lot of these sides are banned or heavy regulated in Western Europe.

I wonder in which Government pockets this money will fly.

In the UK it's pretty liberal. Other countries like Germany are a lot stricter. Although this all depends on what you call gambling. For instance, in Germany lotteries (state owned ones) have been popular for decades. Bookmakers (ie betting) is less common in Germany but catching on. Pure gambling in terms of Casino's is harder to find in Germany - I think you have to "join" the club before you can play. And you won't find many one-armed bandits there, whereas in the UK they are in every pub.

Not sure about other countries, but this is not something you can generalise over the EU. Each country has completely different laws on this. However none of them have the US issues with online gambling and things like online poker are growing every where I think. They even have poker on TV I noticed last time I was in the UK.

Question by Hannu Takkula (ALDE) to the Commission, 18 December 2007:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+P-2007-6441+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN

....
Gambling on the Internet has caused serious financial problems to individuals. According to research in Finland, for example, Internet poker is the second biggest cause of gambling dependence. This has been concluded from calls to a telephone helpline for people with gambling problems. The majority of callers were young adult males.
....
Operators of Internet gambling businesses include organised CRIMINALS, who use them TO LAUNDER MONEY. On the other hand, the proceeds from gambling organised under strict national supervision are mainly used for public health work.
...

Answer of the European Commission, 8 Feb 2008

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=P-2007-6441&language=EN


Most goverments try to heal the problem of online gambling and Bulgaria want to start with it. What is the idea ?


Greetings to all

QA

whichever one Vassil Bozhkov puts it in, one would imagine