Slovakia Gives Green Light to Online Gambling in 2019

The Central European country of Slovakia is all but ready to make a big next step that will alter the course of their gaming future, by preparing to open their market for foreign online gambling operators next year.

The brand-new gambling legislation, prepared by the Ministry of Finance, has been ed by the Slovakian parliament. This piece of law also applies to operators with a ed office outside of Slovakia.

Still a Few Months to Go

Although already approved by the government, the new act will not be effective before March 1st next year, and some of its provisions won’t be live before June 1st.

Those wishing to apply for an online betting license will have to pay €3 million for it. The same fee will have to be paid in order to acquire online casino license, with a note that there will be a discount on getting both – this will cost €5 million in total.

The Slovakian Government has instated, for these purposes, a brand new regulatory body that will monitor all gambling-related activities – the Office for Regulation of Gambling. They will inherit the duties currently taken care by Ministry of Finance and their functioning will be bankrolled by a 0.7% GGR tax turnover on lottery.

Foreign operators will be required to have a representative in the country who will with the Office on behalf of operators. This will end the state monopoly on online licenses, although numerical lotteries, bingo and receipt lotteries will remain state-exclusive.

A Decade Worth of License

Once obtained, operators will be able to use their online betting and online casino licenses for ten years before needing to renew them – however, for a combined land-based and online casino license, the license period can last five years max, with the option to buy out another five years.

Online licenses will be issued from July 2019 and applications must be sent from March 1st onwards, once the new bill becomes effective. Those operators who were blocked under the old Act will remain blocked under the new one.

Lack of Tradition, Surplus of Enthusiasm

Eastern European countries do not have a long-standing tradition of online casinos – not even land-based ones for that matter, but it’s only in recent years that it became common for governments in this part of Europe to consider online gambling as a viable option.

Seeing how, in most other regions, gambling revenue is heavily taxed and then used for purposes of benefiting public services, legalizing online casinos can be very helpful in that regard in these countries, as well.

Source:

“Slovakia to greet online gaming in July 2019”, Niji Ng, europeangaming.eu, December 6, 2018.