EU law may allow bans on foreign bet websites-court

09.09.2009, LUXEMBOURG,(Reuters) - European Union law may let countries ban foreign gambling websites if the intention is to stop crime, the bloc's top court said on Tuesday in a judgment that will reverberate through the betting industry.

Shares in Austrian online gambling group bwin -- one of Europe's biggest Internet bookmakers -- tumbled more than 5 percent on the news.

The ruling is a setback for online gaming groups, which have launched a series of legal challenges to domestic betting monopolies, because it could make it harder for them to open up shop around the 27-country EU.

The case concerns a dispute between the Portuguese state betting monopoly, Santa Casa, and bwin, which owns the website Betandwin (Vienna: BWIN.VI - news) .com.

Santa Casa had sought to break up a sponsorship deal involving the Portuguese football league that allowed bwin to advertise its website to fans.

In its ruling on Tuesday, the European Court of Justice said: 'The prohibition imposed on operators such as bwin of offering games of chance via the Internet may be regarded as justified by the objective of combating fraud and crime.'

No one at bwin was immediately available for comment.

European Lotteries, the EU lobby group representing national lotteries, welcomed the ruling.

'This strengthens the hand of national governments and lotteries in controlling what gambling takes place on the Internet,' said Rupert Hornig, the group's EU representative.

(Reporting by Michele Sinner; Additional reporting by Boris Groendahl in Vienna; Writing by John O'Donnell; Editing by Dale Hudson) Keywords: PORTUGAL BETTING/ Keywords: PORTUGAL BETTING/

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