Slovakian Online Gaming Market Ready for New Changes

The new law will come into effect on March 1, 2019.

The Parliament of Slovakia made an important move toward the opening of the country’s gambling market.

The Slovakian legislature has adopted the new gambling law which will allow foreign-based operators to offer their services to customers in Slovakia, even if they have registered offices outside of the country.

This piece of legislation was prepared by the Ministry of Finance.

What to Expect

Under the provisions of the new law, the online licence fee is set at €3 million when it comes to betting online and for online casinos, although the operators will receive a discount when applying for both, with the combined price set at €5 million.

The new law will come into effect on March 1 next year, although some provisions will become effective starting from June 1.

It certainly brings some significant changes. First of all, the new law will create the Office for Regulation of Gambling, which will become the country’s new gambling watchdog, replacing the Ministry of Finance at this position.

When it comes to taxation, lottery operators will be taxed at 0.7% of their turnover, while operators of other games will have to pay 0.7% of their gross gaming yield.

More Info on Taxes and Licences

Although the foreign operators are not required to have a registered office, they will still need to have a registered representative in Slovakia, whose task will be to communicate with the gambling regulator on behalf of the operators.

At this moment, however, only the state monopoly has the online licence, but this will change, as the new bill will limit the state monopoly only to numerical lotteries, special bingo and receipt lotteries.

Online games will be taxed at 22% of gross gaming revenue, while a tax on land-based betting will be at 6% of the turnover, but in certain cases even at 30% of gross gaming revenue. On the other hand, gambling machines located in gambling premises will have a fixed tax.

Licences for online betting and online casino will be valid for 10 years, while a combined land-based and online casino licence will last only 5 years, with a renewal option for 5 more years.

According to available information, the issuing of licences for the online casino will commence in July 2019, with the application process starting four months earlier. All those operators blacklisted under the old gambling law will stay that way once the new piece of legislation comes into effect.