Right2bet

Six months ago we decided to do something completely different in order to raise this issue of online betting with the powers that be in Brussels.  Everything the industry has done to fight protectionist regimes around the EU so far seems to have achieved very little, with many Member States being allowed to support state-sanctioned monopolies, something that is against the most basic principles of European law.

What didn't exist until right2bet came along was an outlet through which ordinary people who like a bet, you the consumer, could make their anger known and do something about it.  That, in a nutshell, is why right2bet was born.

A state monopoly is bad for everyone except the monopoly operators themselves: consumers, operators and governments alike all lose out in one way or another.  In the most obvious example, consumer value is vastly reduced through worse odds - sometimes much worse, as our betting challenge is showing with Dutch punters, for example, 77 percent worse off in terms of winnings.

And how about choice?  Betting in a competitive market gives you the chance to use a huge array of betting products - sports, casino, poker, arcade, slots, financials, bingo and many more.  In a restricted market, however, this choice can be tiny.  What politicians don't seem to care about is that this results in punters looking abroad, outside the safety of EU borders, to use unlicensed operators where consumer protection is minimal at best.

The bottom line with this argument is that in the days of the internet if people want to bet, they will.  It's as simple as that.  It should come as no surprise that one in three people gambling online every second of the day is based in the United States, that's despite online betting being overtly illegal there for four years and the fact that the majority of operators have stopped taking bets from the US.  The same thing, consumers using non-EU operators as a result of some level of prohibition, is inevitably happening right now in many EU countries.

Right2bet wants to change all this by enabling you, the consumer, to add your voice to the argument and get policy makers to sit up and take notice.  Yes, we are supported (and funded) by the industry, but the key point remains that getting this mess sorted out benefits you the consumer as much as the big gambling companies.  Even governments will benefit from regulation through tax - how they don't understand that fact is still a mystery to all of us!

Thanks to GX, we will be providing a weekly blog on the site that will keep you up-to-date with all that's going on at right2bet and our battle to make things better.  We hope you like it.

As a first step, sign the right2bet petition at www.right2bet.net today!

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