The Gaming Regulators European Forum (GREF) met for its annual conference and business meeting in Dublin, Ireland.

The conference was opened by the Irish Minister of Justice, Frances Fitzgerald T.D, in the presence of 70 delegates from 25 European jurisdictions. The Minister acknowledged the continuing need to strengthen dialogue on mutual interests to ensure a high regulatory standard across Europe and was pleased to confirm Irish participation in this process.

The main themes for the meeting were detection and mitigation of match fixing, perspectives on the 4th money laundering directive, national self-exclusion systems and gambling related advertising in Europe.

The Chairman of GREF, Director General of the Swedish Gambling Authority, Hakan Hallstedt expressed his pleasure at the outcome of the various meetings and confirmed his belief that GREF was of continuing value and significance to both established and more recent regulators in Europe today.

“I look forward to seeing GREF go from strength to strength” commented Hallstedt, stepping down after a successful completion of his two year term in office.

Incoming Chairman, Dr Jason Lane, CEO of the Jersey Gambling Commission, paid tribute to

Hallstedt’s contribution saying “we have been extremely lucky in GREF to benefit from Håkan’s experience and he leave’s GREF a strong and vibrant organization”.

Specific issues that are being addressed over the coming year include:

Development and implementation of effective counter measures against match fixing and dealing with related irregularities that could threaten stability and trust in the gambling market.

Building on the work of the EU Expert Group to share knowledge and experience of licensing regimes and to build a common template for sharing information on any issue of importance to meet the future demands of the European gambling market.