Czech Republic Passes Restrictive Online Gaming Laws | PokerNews
The Czech Republic is the most recent country to approve regulated online gaming after the country's president, Miloš Zeman, signed a lot of laws in June with Jan. 1, 2017, being the anticipated launch date of the brand new online gaming regime.
Gaming legislation hit the radar within the Czech Republic in 2014 when the country's finance minister, Andrej Babiš, introduced proposals for the stated purpose of raising taxes on online gaming in hopes that it might curb the social harms he believed this activity created for its 10.5 million residents. Those residents are believed to currently wager online $6 billion per year.
The proposals included an overly high 40-percent tax rate of gross gaming revenue (GGR), which led many to believe that it could do little to permit licensed online gaming operators to supply games competitive with those already available at the gray-area market.
The bills that President Zeman signed into laws after being unanimously glided by the country's Senate by a 42-0 vote, include lower, yet still restrictive, tax rates of 35 percent on GGR from casino games containing a random number generator, that is believed to incorporate online poker and a 23-percent tax rate on GGR from sports wagering and lotteries. To make matters worse, that is all on top of the country's 19-percent corporate tax rate.
The situation is much more unattractive to online poker operators and its Czech customers. In line with Online Poker Report, online poker bets can't exceed 1,000 Czech Koruna ($40.98), and winnings in any specific game or tournament are capped out at 50,000 Czech Koruna ($2,049).
While shared liquidity with international gaming pools could be allowed, gaming operators can be required to limit games that exceed these limits.
Poker players seeking to still play at the gray-area market after the brand new gaming regime is enforced will likely have a tougher time doing so for the reason that new laws contain provisions to create a blacklist of non-licensed providers in conjunction with the possibility of prohibiting certain payment processing transactions. However, such restrictions have proved problematic in other countries with similar laws since players can skirt IP blocking with using virtual private networks and will get around banking restrictions with sites that permit transactions via e-wallets and/or bitcoin.
To help educate vested parties, the country's Ministry of Finance may be hosting a number of workshops in July and August covering topics including taxation and permitted games.
The primary focus of the workshops is for online gaming providers, however, other third parties also are allowed to wait including software providers and legal firms.
Stay tuned at PokerNews as more develops within the Czech gaming marketplace.
*Image courtesy of Adam Jones/Wikimedia.org.
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