While the European Court of Justice is fighting tooth and nail against monopolistic online gambling laws on the continent, they have rejected recent Austrian gambling legislation. This follows shortly after ruling against German Government monopolies. These were found to be engaging in disproportionate promotional activities. However, the Austrian rejection has its basis in different grounds.

There is a current case against Ernst Engelmann, a German National who has been operating two online gambling concerns in Austria without actually having applied for a license; and which the courts of Austria ruled were illegal. The matter came to the attention of the ECJ as they were the body to decide whether gambling legislation in Austria was compliant with EU positions. This position being that gambling services across borders should be the order of the day! It was then that it was found that the government of this country had granted one company alone the position to monopolise gambling services in this country. The company - Casinos Austria AG, has been granted twelve licenses and all of these have been renewed without any public tender process taking place. This means there is no competitive process in place, therefore operators from other EU member countries may not actually apply for casino licenses.

According to the ECJ this is indirect discrimination and "contrary to the principle of equal treatment" which is prohibited by law in the EU. While the ECJ acknowledged that online casino operators from other countries may be banned under the premise of preventing fraudulent or criminal activities, the way the Austrian have their laws set out – in other words only being able to operate from Austria; forms a basis for restrictions on freedoms of establishment. Sounds like shades of the US to us! Apparently an online gambling operation being located in another country does not automatically preclude them from operating into member countries such as Austria.

The ECJ went into great depth regarding how and why the Austrian government could and should espouse "less restrictive measures". If they are acting in the public interest when monitoring online gambling operators, they have to be sure that this is what they are actually doing, and not monopolizing the industry. They criticized an Austrian "lack of transparency" in this legislation, and made it known in no uncertain terms that a license granted to a single local operator is detrimental to online casino operators based in other Member States.

In more European gambling news, the Ukraine looks set to take another look at their draconian ban on gambling. Proposed legislation has apparently been drafted which may re-regulate this form of entertainment in time for an important international football championship event scheduled for 2012. At present there is scarce information available, however, the indications are positive that approval will be granted. Blanket bans on gambling took place in June 2010, causing scores of die-hard gamblers to flock to clubs which offer internets services, specifically for patrons wishing to make use of offshore online casinos.