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(Jamma) Last Friday, the Austrian Constitutional Court declared the current poker regulations contained in the Austrian gambling law of 2010 unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court specifically contested the planned licensing arrangements, including the government's plans to issue a single Austrian license, for opening a poker room in the country as well as their incomplete status.
This legal defeat for the Ministry of Finance creates a legal vacuum that will need to be resolved shortly. "We have taken note of the decision of the Constitutional Court" commented a spokesman for the ministry, adding that the sentence must be carefully analysed. “We will shortly analyze what will be the necessary actions to be taken”.
The gaming law challenged by the Court effectively made it a government monopoly, relegating the activity only to casinos. However the government was unable to work out all the new licensing procedures in a short time, turning the existing poker rooms into technically illegal rooms at the end of 2012.
Many operators, as well as the EU, had condemned the new law arguing that the licensing conditions were drafted to provide an unfair advantage to former monopolist Casinos Austria.
Experts believe the Finance Ministry now has two options. Or leave everything as it was thus leaving the old legislation unchanged, in order to re-liberalize the poker market. Or, it can categorize poker as a game of chance – this option has been left open by the Constitutional Court – and re-regulate the entire licensing issue.
For the Vice President of EUROMAT, Helmut Kafka, these cases highlight how the current Austrian gambling law is a legal mess, contrary to European Union regulations and unconstitutional in many parts.
