Legislation

Slovakia – Slovakia’s online gaming market to open in July 2019

By Phil - 5 December 2018

The Parliament of the Slovak Republic has adopted the new gambling act prepared by the Ministry of Finance, opening the Slovak market for foreign operators, including operators with a registered office outside of Slovakia.

The cost of online licences will be set at €3m for online betting and for online casinos although if operators apply for both, the combined cost will be reduced to €5m.

The new act should become effective on March 1 2019, except for some provisions which will be effective as of June 1 2019.
It has created a new gambling regulator, called the Office for Regulation of Gambling who will replace the Ministry of Finance. It will be bankrolled by a tax on lottery operator turnover of 0.7 per cent 0.7 per cent of gross gaming revenue in the case of operators of other games.

Foreign operators will need to have a representative in Slovakia who will need to register with the Office and communicate with the Office on behalf of the operators.

Whilst currently, only the state monopoly holds the online licence, the new set up will see the state monopoly only apply to numerical lotteries, special bingo and receipt lotteries.

A tax on online games will be set at 22 per cent of GGR. A tax on land-based betting will be set at six tax of the turnover, in some cases on GGR and for casinos it will be set at of 30 per cent of GGR. Gambling machines located in gambling premises will have their tax set at a fixed amount.

Online betting licences and online casino licences will last for 10 years, although for a combined land-based and online casino licence, the maximum licence period is five years with an option for an additional five years. Licences for online casinos will be issued from July 2019 with applications needing to be filed on or after 1 March 2019.

Any operators who were issued with a Blocking Order under the old Gambling Act will remain blocked under the new licensing regime.