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.

Romanian bookmaking company Superbet has secured an online betting license in Poland.

In April, Superbet Zakłady Bukmacherskie submitted the necessary documents to the Ministry of Finance to obtain permission for online sales. The licensing process went smoothly and the regulator issued official permission to conduct online operations of the company based in Katowice.

Superbet is the seventeenth company that can legally offer online betting services in Poland. The Superbet group has undergone many changes in recent months and former CEO of Paddy Power Betfair, Johnny Hartnett, has been appointed as its new CEO.