Slovakia to greet online gaming in July 2019

Slovakia’s parliament has passed the new gambling act prepared by the Ministry of Finance, which will open Slovak market for foreign operators, including operators with a registered office outside of Slovakia.

An online betting license will cost €3m. The same amount will have to be paid as fee for online casino license. If an operator applies for both, there will be reduction as the combined cost will only be €5m.

The new act should become effective on March 1 2019, except for some provisions which will be effective as of 1 June 2019.

As per the bill, a new gambling regulator, the Office for Regulation of Gambling, will come into effect. Currently, the Ministry of Finance is acting as Slovenia’s gambling regulator. The functioning of the regulator will be bankrolled by a tax on lottery operator turnover of 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.

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.