Alex Agius Saliba asks EU to probe Austrian gaming judgments

Alex Agius Saliba Asks EU to Probe Austrian Gaming Judgments: A Red-and-White Warning Flag for Malta’s Digital Crown Jewel

Malta woke up this week to the sound of its most prominent MEP banging on the doors of Brussels. Alex Agius Saliba, Labour’s firebrand in the European Parliament, has formally requested an EU-wide investigation into recent Austrian court decisions that branded several Maltese-licensed online gaming companies “illegal gambling operations.” For an island whose skyline sparkles with the logos of Betsson, Kindred and Entain, the move feels less like a diplomatic formality and more like a family feud taken continental.

The Austrian judgments centre on what Vienna calls “unlicensed games of chance” offered to Austrian consumers. But the companies targeted—many of them household names on Malta’s iGaming corridor—hold valid MGA licences and argue that under EU freedom-of-services rules they should be free to operate across the Single Market. When Austrian courts slapped fines totalling €30 million on the operators, seized domains and ordered IP-blocking, the reverberations were felt 1,400 kilometres south in St Julian’s coffee shops, where coders and compliance officers suddenly found their Friday beers tasting of litigation.

“These rulings are not just against companies, they are against a whole European licensing system that Malta helped build,” Agius Saliba told Hot Malta from Strasbourg. “If every member state can unilaterally declare Maltese licences null and void, we might as well replace the EU flag with 27 different jigsaw pieces.”

The request for an infringement procedure—essentially asking the Commission to sue Austria—was co-signed by 17 MEPs from across the political spectrum. That cross-party backing matters in Brussels, but it matters even more back home. iGaming contributes 12 % of Malta’s GDP and employs roughly 10,000 people, a sizeable chunk for a population smaller than Birkirkara’s weekend traffic jam.

Local voices: “Our bread and butter”
At the leafy Msida offices of a mid-size casino platform, HR manager Maria Camilleri admitted staff are “reading every Austrian news site like it’s tomorrow’s lottery numbers.” She added, “Most of us have kids in private schools, mortgages in Sliema. This isn’t abstract policy; it’s our bread and butter.”

Across the street, 26-year-old game designer Karl Grech was less diplomatic: “We pay Maltese taxes, hire Maltese graduates, sponsor village festas. Austria wants to treat us like criminals because their own state monopoly can’t compete.” His comment touches a raw nerve: Austrian law reserves online casino games for state-owned Casinos Austria, raising the question whether Vienna’s crackdown is consumer protection or protectionism wearing lederhosen.

Cultural aftershocks
Malta has always been adept at turning geography into opportunity—first limestone into baroque cities, then British naval bases into film sets, and finally low-cost bandwidth into a digital Las Vegas. The iGaming boom reshaped village life: Zebbug now sponsors a Premier League shirt, Għargħur’s band club bought new silver trombones thanks to a poker brand’s donation, and Marsaxlokk fishermen swap tips on SEO strategy between hauls.

An existential threat to this ecosystem feels like an attack on the island’s modern folklore. “We used to brag about the Knights; now we brag about server uptime,” joked sociologist Dr Graziella Briffa. “If Brussels doesn’t defend Malta’s licensing regime, we risk rolling back two decades of economic diversification in one court cycle.”

What happens next
The European Commission has eight weeks to decide whether to open a formal infringement case. If it does, Austria could be hauled before the Court of Justice of the EU, a process that can drag on for years but usually ends with hefty daily fines. Meanwhile, Malta’s gaming authority is quietly briefing operators on contingency plans—splitting brands, ring-fencing markets, and exploring emerging territories like Latin America.

For ordinary Maltese, the saga is a reminder that the digital goldmine beneath our limestone cliffs is only as secure as the EU treaties that underpin it. As Agius Saliba put it, “We are not asking for special treatment; we are asking for the Single Market to mean the same in Vienna as it does in Valletta.” On an island where the economy now runs as much on code as on concrete, that plea resonates louder than any brass-band march.