Czech This Out: Sportsbetting To Be Legalised

Published: Thursday, March 23, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

CZECH THIS OUT - SPORTSBETTING TO BE LEGALISED

If sportsbetting is approved, can online casino regulation be far behind?

The Prague Post reports that Czechs who want to wager on the soccer World Cup in Germany this June might be able to do so via the Internet if the Finance Ministry's plans go ahead.

The Finance Ministry wants to regulate and legalise Internet sports betting for the first time, using rules that "...should be worked out by mid-2006 at the latest," says spokesman Jaroslav Ružek.

The country currently does not allow any form of gambling online. This includes online casinos, which feature poker, blackjack and roulette, and online sports books. Czechs wanting to wager have traditionally turned to land casinos, Herna bars and betting shops.

Analysts say the reason for the change in official thinking is simple: The government wants to cash in on tax revenue during what is arguably the world's largest sporting event, the World Cup.

Unfortunately the ministry is not going the whole hog. Its new regulations would still prohibit online casinos and could ban foreign online gaming companies from having Czech customers.

Gambling industry officials say that the new regulations will block foreign companies from operating in the country, but the ministry has only said it will not make online casinos legal. The ministry originally banned Czech companies from creating online casinos in an effort to guard against underage gambling and because such sites were "not transparent."

But in recent years, the country has seen an infusion of foreign companies answering demand for such sites. At least eight foreign online casino companies have Web pages written in Czech, according to the Finance Ministry. Some of the companies have even advertised inside the Czech Republic.

"The interest of foreign companies in the Czech market is understandable," an analyst says. "We have roughly 100 000 players here."

Czechs spend roughly 12 billion Kc ($504 million) on gambling annually, and the Finance Ministry estimates that 1.8 billion Kc of it went to foreign on-line casinos in 2005.

Licensed gambling companies in the country are against the presence of foreign e-gambling companies because Web sites located abroad do not have to follow the same rules. To take any bet, companies are required by law to get a Finance Ministry permit, pay taxes and be open to state monitoring - rules with which no foreign Internet gambling company complies.

"Anything offering any difference is better than what the situation looks like today," says Zdenek Zikmund, spokesman for Sazka, the country's largest gambling company. "We consider the activities of foreign e-gaming companies in the Czech Republic illegal."

Some analysts say the Finance Ministry could be on the way to a general legalisation of online gambling in the Czech Republic, although not immediately.

Czech rules that apply to online casinos still fall under a general gambling law of 1990.