ECA Summer Meeting held in Slovenia

Twenty member countries were represented at the General Assembly. The main items on the agenda were the recent regulatory and policy developments at EU level with regard to gambling services, the great progress of the activities in the 5 ECA Working Groups, and the presentation of the key note speaker, Dr. Mario Pirzl, owner and Manager of Sensorama who gave a presentation on multi-sensory communication and marketing.

EU Regulatory and Policy Developments - The highlight of the first half of 2012 is, of course, the European Commission’s preparation in view of the upcoming Communication on online gambling in the internal market, expected after the summer of 2012. With this document, the Commission will be announcing its action plan in the field of gambling. Other EU developments were discussed including the revision of the third anti-money laundering directive, consumer protection policies, payment solutions and the evolution of the European Court of Justice cases.

Each ECA working group presented its activities and projects. Key activities include the organization of the ECA branded events, such as the ECA members meetings and ECA Slot Summits; gathering of information in view of political submissions; preparation of an extensive Q&A on the casino industry’s regulatory situation; the casino industry responsible gaming certification process; the re-branding of ECA with the creation of new logos, ECA’s social media tools and preparation of an ECA brochure; and the launch of the new ECA associate memberships.

This year’s ECA Summer Meeting presented the second edition of the ECA marketing awards together with the first ECA innovation awards. The ECA is proud to announce and cordially congratulate the winner of the ECA Marketing Awards 2012: Casinos Austria, and the winner of the ECA Innovation Awards 2012: Holland Casino. The ECA members had been invited to submit their best promotional and innovation campaigns of 2011, which were judged by an independent jury on their efficiency and redemption, taking into account the ECA general responsible gaming guidelines.