Valeri Simenov, a member of Bulgaria’s National Front for Salvation Party, has introduced legislation that would ban private lotteries in the country and restrict their operation to a government-owned monopoly.
According to iGamingBusiness.com, Simenov has proposed an amendment to the country’s 2012 Gambling Act which would allow only the Bulgarian Sports Totalizator (BST) to organize lotteries in Bulgaria, but allow raffle, bingo and keno games to be organized privately.
The licenses for all private lottery games would be terminated three months after the bill passes, after which private operators would be required to withdraw from the market. The bill would also require BST managing authorities to be jointly appointed by the Minister of Youth and Sports and the Minister of Finance.
The bill will be examined by the Committee on Budgets and Finance before it may be see a vote in the National Assembly of Bulgaria. The Committee on Children, Youth and Sports and the Committee on Education and Science are also participating in the scrutiny of the bill.
In April 2019, Alexander Georgiev was appointed as the new chairman of Bulgaria’s State Commission on Gambling, having previously served as deputy director of the Bulgarian National Tax Agency since May 2017.
In related news, Bulgarian gambling czar Vasil Bozhkov has been arrested in the United Arab Emirates on charges of tax fraud, attempted bribery and organized crime. One of Bulgaria’s richest men, Bozhkov owns the country’s biggest lottery, a stake in Georgia’s national lottery and a minority stake in the Levski Sofia soccer team.
Authorities say Bozhkov failed to pay about $317 million in taxes and fees related to his private lottery companies dating to 2014. Bozhkov says he believed “everything is paid for in adherence with the law,” and added that state could charge him retroactively to recover the shortfall.
