According to Media reports, the bill on new regulation of the gambling business in Austria will be considered at the spring of this year. However, the gamgling and sports betting industry is criticizing the lack of policy transparency. The Austrian Association of Betting and gambling ( OVWG ) is calling for the industry to get involved in the reform.

In a current press release, the Austrian betting and gambling association is calling for an open discussion of the announced gambling industry reform. It welcomed the started discussion of the reorganization. However, the goal should be a modern licensing system.

On 24th of February, acting minister of justice Werner Kogler announced a reform of the gambling business. The purpose of this is to separate the supervision of gambling from the Ministry of Finance and transfer it to an independent authority. The Commision of Judicial Concessions should be responsible for issuing licenses. The Finance Minister Gernot Blumel said that Austria will be guided by international models when it comes to dividing gaming competencies. The goal is to create a transparent gaming organization.

According to the OVWG, sanction mechanisms such as planned network blocks should not be the target of game reform.Without European proper legislation, DNS blocking means sanctioning suppliers with a European license, but not the Austrian one.

The planned network blocks will influence well known EU licensed gaming operators such as bet-at-home or Interwetten. This will also affect their partners. However, they depend on sponsorship from gaming providers.

Players in their turn favor a wide variety of proposals. If they are not available in the legal market, they can switch to illegal and uncontrolled suppliers. Attempts by the OVWG to contact the relevant ministries still have been unsuccessful.

The planned changes will have a huge influence on the industry. In the threatened are numerous working places. For upscale and popular sport, they presented a real ‘’ Financial Dilemma’’. An annual investment of around 100 million euros will no longer be deposited.