Smaller ops could be forced to close at 3 a.m.
The Czech government is looking at ways to corral a burgeoning gambling market, and is targeting both land-based and online operations.
According to a news release, the cabinet has agreed on general restrictions that are expected to become law in 2017. They include closing smaller gambling halls between 3 a.m. and 10 a.m., banning gaming machines in pubs and restaurants, and adding mandatory pauses in play. Full-fledged casinos would be able to maintain nonstop operations, the release stated.
In addition, gaming machines such as slot machines would be subject to a 35 percent tax; lottery and bingo games would pay 30 percent; and betting on sporting events would be taxed at 25 percent.
According to Radio.cz, about 5,400 gambling halls and nearly 570 casinos were known to operate in the Czech Republic last year. Though the number of gaming machines was down from 102,000 in 2011 to about 60,000 in 2014, Czechs still spent 138 billion crowns (US$5.6 billion) on gambling during the year.
The radio network reports that some local councils have attempted to ban gambling without much success. In addition, in recent years it has been estimated that the republic had more than six times the number of gaming machines than the rest of the European Union combined.
“My impression is that this proposal might really set up a standard regulatory framework for lotteries and casinos in the country,” said David Ondrá?ka, director of the Czech branch of Transparency International. “The Czech Republic will no longer be exceptional in the numbers of addicted people, and the social costs connected to that will go down.”
But gaming trade association SPELOS says the government has caved into unreasonable demands by anti-gaming activists. And Andrej ?írtek of the Gaming Industry Union says limiting bricks-and-mortar gaming halls will not curb gaming in the digital age.
“The current generation is not used to go onto the streets to search for their games,” he said. “They are used to play it online at any time on their mobile devices. … In the end, this package of laws against gambling is not about to lower the level of gambling in the Czech Republic. It is about moving gambling from one environment to another.”
Presently, foreign internet betting companies cannot operate in the Czech Republic, but some have set up shop anyway, costing the government an estimated 1 billion crowns in tax revenues per year.
