Billions of Euros of turnover are generated every year from games of chance. The legal framework conditions regulating this branch of the economy vary significantly within the European Union. Whilst in many countries such as Germany the state has a dominating monopoly position, other Member States, such as Denmark, France and Italy, have made moves towards a consistent partial liberalisation. These different framework conditions lead to problems, increasingly so as the European internal market is otherwise growing closer together. This is especially evident in the area of online gambling which, due to the structure of this medium, is not restricted by national boundaries, but must nevertheless not constitute a legal no man's land.

Against this background, it appears logical for the European Court of Justice (ECJ), on the occasion of the submission of cases by Member State courts pursuant to Art. 267 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (previously Art. 234 EC), to repeatedly have called for the examination of national gambling regulations with regard to their compliance with Union law, as the ECJ's standing jurisdiction acknowledges that a (national) state monopoly for cross-border issues represents a violation of the freedom of establishment as set out in Art. 56 TFEU (previously Art. 49 EC) or the freedom of establishment as set out in Art. 49 TFEU (previously Art. 43 EC) respectively. Such restrictions of gambling activities may, however, be justified by matters of overriding general interest.

A vast body of scholarly articles and books has been devoted to the precautionary principle, making it one of the most studied principles of our time. This wealth of attention can be explained by the fact that the question of how to manage man-made risks remains an extremely divisive issue for contemporary societies and the precautionary principle is the only principle idiosyncratic to the field of risk law. The book by Zander contributes to this scholarship by presenting a rich comparative legal analysis that gives a clear illustration of how the principle is applied at the international and European level as well as the national level, where the Swedish, UK, and US legal frameworks are discussed. The central parts of the book (chapter 3 to 7) are devoted to these comparisons. For this comparison, Zander chooses two case studies: pesticide regulation and the regulation of base stations.