Poland joined Europe’s regulated online gambling landscape this spring. A new gambling regulatory regime came into effect on April 1, 2017 after being approved by the country’s government last year.
Although the country’s new gambling laws were designed with the intention to liberalize the local market, it cannot be said that much liberalization has occurred. Under the new regime, international operators are able to apply for a license for the provision of sports betting options only. Online casino, poker, and bingo games can only be offered by the country’s designated gambling monopoly.
Over the past several years, online sports betting services have enjoyed great demand not only in Poland, but also in Europe and around the world. And there is no doubt that this type of offering has and will attract a more than satisfactory number of Polish customers.
However, operators interested to operate in the local market are facing a 12% tax on turnover. The Polish Ministry of Finance, the authority responsible for the regulation of the country’s gambling industry, has been approached with vocal criticism for its decision to implement a rate that is extremely high by all standards (online gaming and betting services are taxed on a percentage of gross gaming revenue in most regulated European jurisdictions).
The Ministry has made it very clear that unlicensed operations will be highly unwelcome and that the market will be monitored strictly for any wrongdoing and violation. To prevent such unlicensed operations, the country’s financial department announced earlier this year that it would create a blacklist of unauthorized operators that would later on have their access to the local gambling community blocked.
First names were added to the list in early April and more have joined the company since then. Following the latest update on the Ministry of Finance’s website, it can be seen that there are 311 domains added and that the list has been updated almost daily over the past two months. Yet, it is interesting to note that despite its rapid expansion, the list is still too short to compete with those of other regulated European jurisdictions.
Those included in the list will have access to their websites blocked by Polish Internet service providers. The Ministry of Finance has given local ISPs up to July 1 to begin blocking unlicensed operations. A lot has been said and written about ISP blocking, but all conversations on the topic are usually being put an end to with the general conclusion that the approach is not highly effective and that stubborn iGaming businesses can easily find a way around the obstacles deployed by ISPs.
And it is namely those stubborn black-market businesses that Polish authorities have been and are trying to purge the local market from. However, they have somewhat scared off a number of reputable operators – their exact opposites – over the regulation process by introducing the turnover tax and limiting the choice of allowed operations to just sports betting.
Europe and the world’s largest gambling operators are becoming more and more keen to operate in a regulated gambling environment and to avoid ambiance that lacks in proper regulations. However, there is another important trend here, which sees the state of overregulation and overtaxation as something these same operators are not that keen to embrace.
