Online gambling rules cause divide in European Parliament members

While some members of the internal market and consumer protection committee of the European Parliament favor one side or the other, an agreement may not be found. That is why a special vote to tally up the opinions may decide the future of the EU's involvement in setting regulations for online gambling.
Some nations think it best that they as a country regulate the internet gambling that occurs there, while other nations feel the continent as a whole should set policy for the online gaming that takes place in all the countries of the EU.
Currently, each nation is in charge of determining the regulations in their own country. Opponents to this way of handling the situation point to the fact that since online gaming has no borders, it is considered an international activity. Thus, they say, it is impossible to regulate international gambling state by state.

For now, the European Union is concerned that such a variety of different laws regulate gaming that streamlining rules and standardizing the industry would be an improvement and make gaming better and easier to regulate. Now, some states have many rules and some are very liberal. Finding common ground on how and where to set limits, it seems, is the crux of the problem.

A green paper that was published by the Commission last spring questioned whether the EU should be involved in legislation over the topic, and the paper suggested the EU should in fact regulate online gambling, but without a strict set of rules. Rather, it suggested greater cooperation between the various countries involved.
One of the leaders of Parliament's work in this area, German MEP Jürgen Creutzmann, called for legalizing online gambling in all countries of the EU. Creutzmann said this would prevent the spread of illegal online gambling.