Economic Aspects of Gambling Regulation EU and US Perspectives

The dynamic discussions which took place at the Colloquium on the Economic Aspects of Gambling Regulation: EU and US Perspectives, hosted by Tilburg University, are reflected in this book. It brings together a wide range of perspectives from the contemporary debate surrounding the regulation of gambling from within the context both of the EU and the USA. Not only does the book encompass both ends of the spectrum of the current discussion; it also brings together the perspectives of academics, lawyers and operators.

Debates surrounding the regulation of gambling have been increasing in terms of frequency and ferocity, at the national, European and international levels. Within the Member States of the European Union there has been considerable debate as to the appropriate method of regulating gambling, in particular with a view to securing revenue streams for good causes. Concurrently, infringement proceedings of the European Commission and the case-law of the European Court of Justice have the potential to disrupt chosen regulatory approaches and thus long established revenue flows. This is but one of the economic aspects to the regulation of gambling which to date has not been explored within Europe to the extent seen in the United States. Lessons which European jurisdictions can learn from American experiences in this field, and discussions on the state-of-the-art of gambling economics in Europe today, form the basis of this dynamic book.

Tom Coryn studied at the University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven, Belgium) and the University of Toulouse (Université des Sciences Sociales, France). He holds a master degree in Economics and Criminology. He worked as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law (Criminology Department) in Leuven where he did research on organised crime. In Tilburg (Tilburg University) he was a member of the Research Group Police and Gambling (Faculty of Law). His fields of interests related to gambling are the costs and benefits of casinos and gambling venues, gambling related crime and governmental gambling policies.
Cyrille Fijnaut is professor of international and comparative criminal law at the Law School of Tilburg University. In the past he was professor of criminology and criminal law at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the K.U. Leuven, Belgium. His main research interests are related to organised crime and terrorism, international police and judicial cooperation, comparative criminal procedure and police law, the history of European criminology and of policing in Europe, police and police cooperation in the Benelux. In these fields he wrote and edited some 75 books and published hundreds of articles in learned and professional journals and edited books. In 2004 he edited together with L. Paoli the book “Organised Crime in Europe; concepts, patterns and control policies in the European Union and beyond” (Springer), and together with J. Wouters and F. Naert the book “Legal instruments in the fight against international terrorism; a transatlantic dialogue” (Martinus Nijhoff). His comprehensive history of the Dutch police in the 19th and 20th century was in 2007 published in Amsterdam (Boom). In addition he has worked in the last 15 years as an expert for a number of governmental and parliamentary committees of inquiry in Belgium and the Netherlands with regard to organised and professional crime problems and in relation to security issues. He was, amongst others, the rapporteur of the committee that investigated the safety and security problems of Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch politician who was killed in May 2002. Since 2005 he has a special chair, sponsored by the Dutch State Lottery, on the regulatory aspects of gambling in the European Union.
Alan Littler graduated from the University of Dundee with an LL.B in Law (2002) and cum laude from the LL.M European Community Law programme of the Universiteit Leiden (2003). He subsequently completed an internship with DG Internal Market and Services of the European Commission and then returned to the Universiteit Leiden as a researcher on the implementation of Community non-discrimination legislation. In 2005 he began as a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law at Tilburg University and the Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC) considering the regulation of gambling in the context of the European Union’s internal market. In addition to publishing a number of articles in this field, the first gambling colloquium at Tilburg University (November 2005) was followed up by Littler, A. & Fijnaut, C. (eds), The Regulation of Gambling: European and National Perspectives (Martinus Nijhoff, 2007).