Polish bookmaker STS has launched a new campaign “Bet with the leaders.” Former Manchester United and Denmark goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel is the global ambassador of the campaign.

The cooperation between STS and Peter Schmeichel started in autumn 2019. New promotions with him will be seen on television, entertainment and digital platforms.

“The global ambassador of our Bet with the leaders campaign, is Peter Schmeichel, an award-winning figure well known throughout the world. The footballer with Polish roots is a perfect example of the fact that fortune favours the brave. He took up the challenge of playing abroad, which turned out to be a path to numerous successes in the sports world. This is incredibly close to our philosophy regarding the international expansion of STS,” Mateusz Juroszek, chief executive of STS said.

“With this new campaign, we are upgrading our logo, which visually represents the fundamental values that, as a brand, we have inscribed in our DNA – modernity, dynamics and a strong and sporty character. We constantly put people who are passionate about sports at the centre of our attention, thus having enough skills to make good predictions,” Mateusz Juroszek added.

The Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic has defended its decision to introduce higher taxes on certain gambling activities, after a national newspaper claimed the tax hike would harm the country’s land-based market. The Ministry said that income from the higher taxes will help support its efforts to protect people from gambling-related harm.

From January 2020, a new structure will split taxes into three tiers, according to how harmful the government perceives the activity to be. Gambling tax is currently set at 23% of gross gaming revenue (GGR,) with the exception of gaming machines, which are taxed at 35% of GGR. Lotteries, live games and bingo operators will be taxed at 30% of GGR, up from the current rate of 23%, while the rate for fixed-odds betting will rise from 23% to 25%.

Jiří Dolejš, a member of the parliamentary budget committee for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), said the government should reconsider the decision before implementing the new regulations.

Dolejš put forward an alternative proposal whereby the rates for lotteries, live games, bingo and fixed odds betting would remain the same, but the tax rate on gaming machines would be increased from 35% to 38%. He added that the government should be focused on tackling online gambling, claiming the channel was riskier than certain forms of land-based gambling.

“The main intention is to raise taxes for slot machine operators, which are the most harmful. The point is to reasonably maintain different rates of gambling taxation according to social risk, but the Ministry of Finance was not interested in this debate,” Dolejš said.

Totalizator Sportowy has received an award in the Gala Digital Excellence Awards 2019. The award was for the Digital Transformation category.

The award was received by Aida Bella, Director of the Sports Spokesman’s Totalizator Office and Albert Pasek managing the Product and Technology Project Management Team in the company.

“Being among the 10 finalists, we didn’t know until the very end whether we would be awarded in one of the six categories, and yet we were successful – members of the CIONET community voted for us! We have won over projects of several large companies. We can speak of a great distinction, because the CIONET Community category is considered the most unique! This is due to all employees of our company who contributed to the company’s entry into the e-commerce market,” Aida Bella said.