Interactive
Poland – Polish government needs to do more in online crackdown
By Phil - 22 January 2018
Polish legal association Graj Legalnie has said the Polish government must do more to stamp out unlicensed online operators who, it states, still account for over 60 per cent of the Polish online gaming market.
This comes despite a raft of new laws and a 12 per cent tax on turnover, which has so far generated over PLN 396m for the Polish economy. Graj Legalnie believes that if the new legislation was correctly enforced, the amount paid to the treasury would increase to PLN 594m.
Łukasz Borkowski, of the Graj Legalnie association, said: “In our opinion blocking of illegal operators’ websites and payments must be more effective. The Polish Ministry of Finance should update The Register of Domains for Illegal Offering of Gambling more frequently and efficiently. It will lead to fairer competition on the Polish bookmaking market and reduce the ‘grey market’ in the Polish betting industry.”
Poland has now blacklisted and blocked 1,303 websites, including 1xbet, Betrally, RUbet and Dotabet. However some unlicensed operators are known to simply change domain names and continue operating.
Of the licensed operators, STS has the largest share of the market with 48 per cent followed by Czech based operator Fortuna and Polish operator Tototlotek with 31 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
Despite the illegal’s, the licensed betting market is booming in Poland with GGG doubling from 2016 to 2017 to PLN 3.3bn.
In further news, Poland’s Deputy Finance Minister Piotr Walczak has confirmed that the state-run online casino will not be launched until the third or fourth quarter of the year.
Last April, new gambling laws in Poland allowed international operators to apply for sports betting licenses from the Finance Ministry. Totalizator Sportowy was though given a monopoly over the operation of online casino games.
Another new law saw Polish gamblers online and offline having to pay a 10 per cent tax on winnings from January 1, 2018.
