By Rob van der Gaast

Privatization comes in handy and it seems to be a magic tonic. Daily we hear people talking about ‘privatizations’. One can privatize roads, schools, golf courses, airports, postal services, energy, prisons, marinas, water, nursing homes... and gambling. "Gambling-Privatization" is another panacea, where governments are suddenly focusing on as a desirable target: Why not privatize it?

It will only be a matter of time. Governments need the money and the cash, rich operators have the money. Even the lotteries in North America will surrender to the Gambling-Privatization wave. For Europe the arguments will be twofold: ”it is the money stupid…“ and a very brave European Commission which is after Finland, the Federal Republic of Germany (16 states), Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, etc. All on the list to be privatized.

The definition of Gambling-Privatization: Changing a gambling operation from state (monopoly) to private (partial) ownership or control. Gambling-Privatization is a process of moving from a government-controlled gambling system to a privately run, for-profit system. This means that Gambling-Privatization includes deregulation, liberalisation, leasing and tendering.

The most well known gambling-privatization is Greece’s national lottery OPAP. In 2001 there was a partial gambling-privatization of 5.4% of the ordinary shares through a public offering. On July 17, 2002, the Hellenic Republic sold a further 18.9% and on July 12, 2003, the Government sold an additional part of 24.4%. In July 2005, the government sold 16.44% of its remaining 51% stake in OPAP, raising some € 1.3 billion for the Greek Treasury.

The UK National Lottery is another famous Gambling-Privatization object. The National Lottery Commission is responsible for "awarding a single license to a commercial operator to run the National Lottery for the benefit of the nation".

• First license (including an interim license): 1994 – 2002;
• Second license: 2002 – 2009;
• Third license: 2009 - 2019.

The ongoing privatization of the National Lottery of Turkey, Milli Piyango, started as a Gambling-Privatization through a transfer of operation rights (TOOR), and changed during the progression to a concession tender transfer for the gaming license of the national lottery for a period of 10 years.

After the collapse of the tender, the head of the privatization authority, Turkey's Privatization Administration President Metin Kilci, said that his administration would revise the tender structure and the scheduling. He added that the new tender should be more participatory and competitive. It should still take place in 2009. Kilci said officials of his administration and national lottery would start working for a new tender next. "We have seven months ahead. We will try to optimize this time".

After all the failures and delays of the Turkish privatization program, including the privatization of the National Lottery, one should think that a change at the helm of the privatization authority would be needed. However that is not the case. The head of the Turkey's privatization administration, Metin Kilci, did not involve his gaming privatization specialist for a very long time.

Ongoing European Gambling-Privatizations are:

• Deregulation of Danish Gambling Market
• French Sports Betting Liberalisation
• Milli Piyango Lottery Tender

Rob van der Gaast, the owner of Gambling-Privatisation.com is the co-author of MECN’s report “Privatisation of state-controlled gambling operators - Only hype or a reality in the near future?” which has been recognized within the industry as the standard report on Gambling-Privatization. The Dutchman and his crew were directly and indirectly involved in the Gambling-Privatization process of Milli Piyango, the Turkish National Lottery. Together with Jolanda van Til, Head of the Research and Publishing Department, the following Gambling-Privatization reports were produced:

• All you have to know for the privatization of the two French monopolies: PMU for horse racing and Francaise des Jeux for lotteries
• Deregulation of Danish gambling market
• Privatization of the National Lottery: Milli Piyango
• Fixed Chance Betting Tender Turkey.

As European correspondent Rob van der Gaast has written dozens of articles on Gambling-Privatizations for IGamingNews (the gambling industry's premier e-magazine), LotteryInsider, ISA-CASINOS and so on.

Extensive research studies of all privatizations are available via Rob van der Gaast.

GamblingAnalysts.eu
Gambling-Privatisation.com

About

The last ten years Rob and his team executed all the major scientific gambling researches in Europe and publicized hundreds of articles and reports on the gambling industry. For the Privatization of the Turkish National Lottery and the ten year Sports betting license in Turkey, Rob van der Gaast and Jolanda van Til wrote in-dept reports.

Van der Gaast was co-author of several versions of the 'Internet Gambling Report'. Above that he conducted the reports 'The Gaming and Lottery Files', 'European Research Report: Internet Gaming in Europe' and the '4th Edition of the Global Gambling Report’ (European segment), the most authoritative source of information in the gambling industry'. Van der Gaast is also co-author of MECN’s "Local expert insights - The Balkan Gambling Markets Report on the gambling markets in Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, and Montenegro".

Rob van der Gaast is member of the Primary Insight Expert Consulting Network, a wholly-owned subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co.