Slovakia has tightened the measures against online gambling companies that operate on its territory. The country has made six new additions to its online gambling domains blacklist after the competent authorities said the operators had been offering their services to local players without getting Government’s permission first.
As Casino Guardian has reported earlier, the middle of July saw the country’s Government publish the first-ever blacklist of online gambling operators. The list included ten online gambling domains which were considered as untrustworthy and unacceptable as they have been providing Slovakian punters with their services without an operating license.
Back in July, Slovakia banned some of the largest and most popular gambling operators on a global scale, including bet365, William Hill, Bwin, 888 Holdings, Bet-at-Home and 1xbet. The Malta-licensed Lvbet.com and Kajot-casino.com, as well as the Curacao-licensed Eatsleepbet.com were also included in the Government’s online gambling domains blacklist.
At that time, it came to out knowledge that a special note had been issued to 17 iGaming operators, with ten of these companies seeing themselves suspended due to operating without the official approval of local regulatory authorities. In addition, two other operators had chosen to voluntarily exit Slovakia and stop providing their services to local players.
Now, the list with unacceptable iGaming operators has been expanded to 16 companies, with six more operators added by the Government. According to local media reports, the competent authorities expect the blocked operators to close their websites within 10 days, before they get a special court order that is to make it obligatory to the internet service providers to suspend the websites on their domain name service (DNS). In case that the iGaming companies do not follow the order, they will be made to pay a financial penalty amounting to up to €500,000.
As far as the local internet service providers are concerned, they confirmed their readiness to suspend the websites. However, they need to receive a court order first in order to proceed with the procedure. In addition, the ISPs shared their concern with the fact that the Slovakian Government has been imposing new responsibilities on them without paying them extra money for that.
The crackdown imposed on the local Government on iGaming companies in Slovakia has earlier made a lot of operators to exit the country’s market on their own will after the authorities revealed that the country is to see new gambling regulations implemented. In addition, the blacklist for the iGaming industry was not the only measure taken by the Government to tighten its regulation on the local gambling market.
Several months earlier, all gambling activities except for retail lottery operations and sports betting shops were suspended within the city limits of Bratislava. The gaming operators who already have casino and slots there were allowed to operate until the expiration date of their operating licenses is reached.
The new gambling regulatory rules that are being slowly but surely imposed by the Slovakian Government have been aimed at tightening the gambling regulatory regime in the country. Under the new rules, sports betting companies would be forced to pay a tax amounting to 27% of their gross gaming revenue generated in Slovakia. In addition, the right to oversee online casino and poker activities in the country would be granted to the state-owned national lottery operator TIPOS.
- Author
Daniel Williams
