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Slovakia opens online gambling market to foreign businesses

The European country of Slovakia is all set to liberalize the online gambling market in their country. Slovakia’s National Council, which is their parliament, has approved a new gambling act, which states the opening of their home markets to international operators across the European Union (EU). This news comes as a first in Slovakia’s history where it has offered their audience to foreign businesses.

The bill was drafted by the Slovakian Ministry of Finance and will put a stop to the state-owned national lottery operator – TIPOS, who currently has monopoly over this burgeoning industry. Under these new changes, TIPOS will still continue to operate on a few lotteries and bingo.

The bill having been approved by the Parliament, now only seeks a nominal signature by the incumbent Slovakian president Andrej Kiska. The Ministry of Finance had designed the proposals early this year after having thoroughly gone through other cases of liberal gambling law enactments in some EU countries like Denmark, Romania, Sweden and Czech Republic.

Peter Papanek, the head of Association of Betting Companies of the Slovak Republic, explained saying, “Experience from abroad shows that, if the state wants to intervene against tax evasion and illegal gambling, it must go through the liberalization of the market and the setting of fair conditions, among other things, to motivate operators to operate legally.”

“Illegal companies thus lose the incentive to circumvent the rules, and the state, in addition to income, also gains the certainty of consumer protection. The countries that have chosen liberalisation have rapidly reduced the share of the black market,” he further added.

The revamped Slovakian industry will start accepting applications for online gambling licenses from March 2019, and approvals will be issued starting from July, after exhaustive background checks and investigations. The licenses will be effective from July 2020. These licenses will have a validity of 10 years and land-based betting agencies will be given 5-year licenses with 5-year extensions based on the operator’s discretion.

This comes as welcome news around the world, where some countries are taking good measures to liberalize their gambling industry and regulate it effectively. The states also have huge incentives as tax flow will increase a lot after the regulation. Keep reading GutshotMagazine.com for more gambling related news, tournament announcements and general poker news from around the world.

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