Novomatic CEO Harald Neumann is warning jurisdictions in the midst of regulatory overhaul that banning verticals and imposing player limits are counter-productive and “don’t make sense”.
He said the threats by some European jurisdictions of the imposition of draconian gambling laws will inadvertently push punters to unscrupulous providers.
Neumann said Novomatic surveyed the top 10% of its players in Austria, asking what they would do if the games they enjoyed were banned. “The simple answer was they would find a way”, he said. “If there’s no legal offer, they will find an illegal offer”.
Highlighting the seemingly short-termist approach of legislators, he said: “Many politicians still believe that gaming bans are the solution. They can create a big campaign where they’re shown destroying some slot machines and then you can read in the papers that the politicians are acting against gaming.”
He added, “Regulation has to be fair to all. It has to be fair to the public, but it has to be fair to players and operators. We are still talking about entertainment and it has to entertain.”
He said the challenge for the industry is to overcome the fact that, of the politicians he speaks to, “twenty percent are negative about the industry, but they generate eighty percent of the media”.
Novomatic supplies regulated markets only and is one of Europe’s biggest operators, turning over around €5bn last year.
It withdrew its online casino content from the German market in 2018 due to ongoing uncertainty around regulation.
Commenting directly on the prospective changes to regulation in Germany, Neumann welcomed the proposed return of online gaming, but was sceptical about the separation of gaming verticals, such as sports betting, and online and land-based offerings, saying, “It just doesn’t make sense”.
“The world is going into digitalisation and you can’t separate land-based and digital”, he said.
“There is a betting limit of a thousand euros per month, which is also not very attractive for the players”, he added.
