Hello and top of the morning to ya, as we take a look back at a week in which GamblingCompliance hosted the inaugural Irish Gaming Review conference at Clontarf Castle in Dublin.

The publication earlier this summer of a much-hyped official review of Ireland’s gambling laws may just have been the most eagerly anticipated Irish release since U2’s ‘Achtung Baby’ album – fostering the need for further debate about the future legal reforms that report heralded.

And so it was that representatives from across Ireland’s gambling and bookmaking industries joined international regulators, operators and gaming law experts – plus members of the GamblingCompliance team - in Dublin last Monday and Tuesday for wide-ranging discussions on the reports likely implications as the Irish Executive prepares to translates the findings into concrete legislative reform.

Ivan Yates, former government minister and owner of the Celtic Bookmakers betting shop chain, led the calls for a swift transition to a new regulatory regime in the wake of the report.

Yates urged Irish politicians to “wake up and smell the coffee”, highlighting the potential revenue that could brought amidst the current economic crisis through the regulation of fully-fledged land-based casinos, remote gambling activities and by allowing bookmakers to install fixed-odds betting terminals in their shops.

A recent economic impact study found that the regulation of land-based and online casino gaming in Ireland could potentially generate up to 280 million euros for the Irish Government by 2020, in addition to creating upwards of 13,000 new jobs.

However, while the economic arguments in favour of broad regulatory change echoed long into the Dublin night after each day of the conference, interventions on the part of key interest groups and leading international observers demonstrated the number of hurdles that continue to stand in the way of the regulatory changes demanded by the Government’s official study and by the country’s gambling sector itself.

While the report duly identified regulation of remote gambling as an economic opportunity for the Irish Republic, Ireland may have delayed too long in introducing regulations to become a leading international remote gaming hub to rival the likes of Malta or Gibraltar, said Wes Himes, an industry lobbyist and European advisor to the Remote Gambling Association.
 
Furthermore, land-based bookies will have to overcome political opposition if they wish to see a policy u-turn on the report’s recommendation that lucrative fixed-odds betting terminals be limited to licensed casino venues under any new regime.

Ireland’s former justice minister and influential anti-gambling opposition politician Pat Rabbitte spelled out his social concerns regarding FOBTs in betting shops at the conference – leaving the bookmaking sector needing to pull something out of the hat if its arguments are to be heard favourably by politicians on Merrion Street.

However, the first news this week of impending gambling reforms in Ireland did not herald good news for Irish bookies. As the sessions drew to a close on Tuesday and conference delegates began to think of a post-conference Guinness (or two), the Ireland’s Finance Minister unveiled in his budget speech that betting taxes are to be doubled from 1 to 2 percent next year.

A rise to just 1.5 percent would be enough to drive hundreds of betting shops out of business, Yates earlier suggested, leaving it even more pressing for the Government to respond to this summer’s report.

The majority of attendees at GamblingCompliance’s first Irish Gaming Review will be hoping the Government’s next announcement on gambling brings more positive news for the sector – but the two-day event held in Dublin last week has certainly left the industry better prepared for change.

As conference chairman Joe Kelly of law firm A&L Goodbody concluded, “it is important that we have an informed debate and proper analysis as a pre-cursor to any legislation itself.”