Greek regulator struggles to monitor online gambling activity

With the Greek government champing at the bit to introduce a new online regulatory and licensing regime (see previous reports) the Hellenic Gaming Commission this week made the surprising admission to Parliament that it is unable to perform the necessary monitoring of temporarily licensed Internet gaming companies in Greece.

The newspaper Ekathimerini reports that the regulator acknowledged that it is not able to check the 24 betting service suppliers as long as they have the temporary licensing status granted to them in 2012.

The newspaper additionally notes that Alternate Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis also admitted on Thursday that the Greek state does not and cannot carry out any form of inspection on operator servers, which are located in countries outside the European Union.

Revised online gambling regulations may well seek to tighten up regulatory oversight in Greece, political and industry observers have suggested.