The European Commission has approved a Draft Decree prepared and presented by the Czech Ministry of Finance in relation to the technical standards for the provision of gambling services in a safe and socially responsible environment.
According to media reports, the technical standards framework contained information about the requirements one gambling operator or another needs to meet in order to be eligible for a Czech gaming license. Technical parameters for devices used for gambling services, general parameters for the provision of gambling services, and the storage and protection of financial and other related data were among the main topics discussed in the legal document.
The Decree will come as an amendment to the Czech Republic’s existing gaming laws. The Central European country approved the implementation of a new gambling regulatory framework in 2016. The new set of regulations replaced the Czech Republic’s somewhat obsolete Lotteries Act from the early 1990s on January 1, 2017.
Under the new law, interested international operators are able to apply for a license for the provision of gambling services to local players. Although multiple gambling companies have expressed interest in entering the Czech Republic’s regulated market, many may abstain from applying for a license (or at least for now) for several important reasons.
In the first place, the new Czech regulatory regime taxes operators at 35% on their gross gaming revenue, a rate that is a bit too high, particularly when compared to other European regulated jurisdictions.
Shortly after the country regulated its market, criticism emerged against the way it handled unauthorized operators. International non-governmental organization Transparency International (TI) found out that unlicensed operators kept on operating in the Czech Republic, despite the fact that the newly introduced regulations prohibited that.
TI representatives said in January that they would follow closely how the issue would be coped with by the government in the following months. In February, the Czech Constitutional Court ruled that local Internet service providers (ISPs) must block unlicensed online gambling operations and those must be blacklisted by the Ministry of Finance, the body responsible for the regulation of the country’s gaming and sports betting market.
Although deployed by a number of countries, blocking has proved to be a perfectly imperfect solution to the issue of preventing unauthorized gambling businesses from reaching players.
Provisions for blocking unlicensed websites were included in the Czech Republic’s new Gambling Act, and the Constitutional Court ruling came as an affirmation to the constitutionality of those provisions.
International gambling operators have already entered the Czech regulated market, with online poker room PokerStars being among those. However, partypoker, another big online poker name, announced last week that it had withdrawn its application for a license from the country’s Ministry of Finance, mainly due to the weaknesses in the new Czech Gambling Act and the environment it regulates at present.
Central and Eastern European iGaming markets are considered by many ones of great potential. However, improper regulation may drive major industry names away and send local players to operators with questionable businesses. And it seems that although the Czech Republic has made the most important step – to regulate its market, it still has a long way to go to turn that market into a highly attractive one.
