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Online betting will be "legalized" on Thursday, the Assembly is expected to approve the changes "On gambling"

Politiko 2023-11-07 09:26:52

Online betting will be "legalized" on Thursday, the Assembly is

After more than a year of discussions, it is expected that on Thursday the Parliament of Albania will approve the amendments to the law "On games of chance". In this way, sports betting will be formalized, but now "online". The organizers of the "Online sports betting" category are taxed at the rate of 25% of the gross income from the game.

According to the draft law, "Any legal entity or association of legal entities, domestic or foreign, that seeks to be provided with a license in the "Online Sports Betting" category, must fulfill the minimum criteria, such as: Be a joint-stock company, with headquarters in the territory of of the Republic of Albania, registered with the National Business Center, in the object of whose activity is reflected the gambling activity in the "Online Sports Betting" category; The capital amount must be no less than ALL 1.2 billion; To declare the source of the capital that will be invested for the exercise of the activity for the "Online Sports Betting" category; The applicant entity or, at least, one of its shareholders has experience in the field of gambling in no less than 3 OECD countries and for no less than 3 years, as well as having the appropriate financial, administrative, organizational capacities and the credibility of the applicant to successfully engage in such projects. Meanwhile, the draft also imposes numerous restrictions on sports betting advertising.

On January 1, 2019, the Albanian government decided to close the doors of all electronic casinos and sports betting in the country, calling them a "social wound" for society. The action of 4 years ago, "The End of Stupidity", has cost the government significantly, while it directly affected about 15,000 families that generated income from this sector.

At that time, there were 3 parent companies of sports bars operating with nearly 4,200 points throughout the country, which were physically closed. But their physical closure was the beginning of the flourishing of an informal betting industry.

From 2019 until now, sports betting has moved online and operates informally thousands of sites, where anyone through an account opened via the Internet can play normally. And seeing this progress, the government decided to formalize this "social wound" by formalizing this industry again, in order to collect the missing income over the years.

But how much is the missing income in the state budget from the closure of this industry during these 4 years? Betting companies paid about 35 million euros to the state budget in the form of taxes and duties every year, while from 2019 onwards all activity, moved online, has been translated into pure profit without obligations for the actors of this market.

They have even saved from the expenses for renting physical points, electricity, etc. If we do a simple calculation, the state budget has lost nearly 140 million euros in revenue from sports betting alone, which includes tax, social and health insurance, etc./SCAN