CJEU’s Advocate General defends UK gambling law

The European Union’s top court has dealt a blow to Gibraltar’s fight to roll back the UK’s new gambling regime.

On Thursday, the Advocate General for the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU) issued his opinion on the Gibraltar Betting & Gaming Association (GBGA) application to quash the UK’s new online gambling rules.

These new rules, which were enacted in 2014, include the requirement for all UK-facing operators to hold a UK Gambling Commission license and to pay 15% point-of-consumption-tax (POCT) on revenue derived from UK online punters.

Gibraltar had been a popular hub for UK-facing online gambling operators, and the GBGA argued that the UK’s new requirements fell afoul of Article 56 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which bars EU member states from imposing restrictions on the movement of goods and services between member states, unless the restrictions can be demonstrated to be intended for the purpose of consumer protection.