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The upper house of the Dutch parliament voted down a bill to grant monopoly operator Holland Casino an exclusive license to provide online gaming services in the Netherlands by a margin of only two votes on Tuesday, dashing Holland Casino's hopes of offering poker and online gambling to Dutch players over the Internet.

Holland Casino had been working for over a year on developing an online offering in cooperation with software provider CryptoLogic.

In February, the European Commission (EC) issued a final warning to Holland challenging their protectionist practices against foreign gambling operators to bring them into compliance with EU directives that give EU-based operators the free movement of goods and services between the 27 EU member countries.

The EC's challenge to Holland's gambling monopoly was one of two main factors influencing the "no" vote. The other reason was that many Ministers simply did not want to introduce any more gambling opportunities to Dutch citizens.

Supporters of private gaming operators celebrated a short-lived victory, when they soon realized that by denying online gaming by state-owned Holland Casino, the Dutch government can now more forcefully defend their position to the EC that they limit online gambling to protect Dutch players.

The "no" vote also clears the way for Dutch authorities to pursue legislation that would impose criminal penalties on banks and credit card companies for facilitating Dutch citizens gambling on foreign gambling sites, noted the Gaming Intelligence Group.

CRYPTOLOGIC DEALT A BLOW

Cryptologic said this morning that while it had hoped to benefit from the establishment of such a site (they would have been on a revenue share basis with Holland Casino) the "no" vote would have no material impact on the company.

"While advocates of safe, secure and regulated e-gaming are disappointed with the Dutch decision, CryptoLogic never places all its bets on one table," said Brian Hadfield, CryptoLogic's President and CEO. "That's why this decision will have no material impact on our business. We recognised the challenge in Holland early and prepared our business by accelerating other revenue-generating initiatives."

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