Zbigniew Macioszek, a member of the board of Casinos Poland, gave an interesting interview this week to the Warsaw Business Journal, in which he commented on the state of e-gambling in the European Union and opined that there may be good opportunities for Poland in the jurisdictional milieu.

Apparently disregarding the UK Gambling Commission, Maciosek said: “The only state that made [online gambling websites] legal is Malta, but the regulations are so heavy that if any other country were to legalise the industry, it would attract investors immediately.

“I cannot see any reason why Poland should not do it,” the casino executive said, adding that the legalisation and development of online gambling could create a great deal of synergy with traditional casinos.

The WSJ reports that the popularity of online gambling is growing rapidly in Poland, giving as an example the e-gambling site Bet-at-home.com, which has tripled its Polish client base to 450 000 within the last two years, according to the newspaper Dziennik. Every fifth player on the site comes from Poland according to Bet-at-home’s data.

Macioszek opines that a new legal framework for gambling is needed in Poland. “[The current framework] was created almost 20 years ago from scratch, with a lot of regulations copied from other countries. Thus, a number of regulations are obsolete or inapplicable in the current context,” Macioszek said.

“There is no one system that we could follow, since every country is different. There are, however, solutions that are worth noting,” he said. “In Poland,we fall under the government’s Customs department, which does not have much time to focus on the sector and does not understand it,” he said.

Fresh from its successful acquisition of a sub-licensor imprimatur from the Isle Of Man jurisdiction the Swedish online gambling software provider NYX Interactive has announced a sales initiative into Asia.

Staffan Lindgren, CEO of the company, revealed this week that NYX is to open an office in Singapore as part of its strategy to generate Asian business.

“As part of our expansion plan this is a strategically important decision,” Lindgren said this week. “Europe is within our reach; overall interest in the company is high and the number of customers steadily increasing. We need to extend our capacity to meet the market’s need of our products. Now we are able to look towards the East to the gigantic Asian market.”

Regional operations create increased speed-to-market and boost efficiency, and NYX is also keen to establish a presence where the active market is or will be in the near future, says Lindgren. NYX Interactive also has plans to participate in the upcoming I-Gaming Expo in Macau for the first time as part of its Asian initiative.

Lindgren says that his company’s experience and technology enables it to offer flexibiility and speed. “[Operators] …cannot afford to be locked into long, ironclad lead times with restrictions that prohibit rapid expansion. To strengthen our offering in the increasingly consolidated market place, we have to be able to provide this possibility”, he says.

NYX Interactive has worked with the WLA (World Lottery Association) and commercial gaming operators. The company was established in 2006 and is listed on the Stockholm exchange.