THE HOUSE Legal Affairs Committee will give priority to the government’s bill to regulate online gambling, and it should be passed into law before the May elections, the Committee’s chairman said yesterday.
According to DISY’s Ionas Nicolaou, the draft bill is expected to be submitted to the plenum today and then forwarded to his committee for discussion.
He said that provided the bill is the same as the one that was examined by his committee – the Legal Affairs and Institutions Committees held joint sessions to discuss the draft before sending it to the European Commission (EC) – it should pass.
“From what I understand, the response from the European Commission must have arrived, which gives us the green light to move ahead with regulating gambling in our state in the way that was contained in the initial bill, as it was formed after first being examined by the EC,” said Nicolaou.
The bill, which was approved by the cabinet on Tuesday, provides penalties ranging from €8,500 for underage betting to €170,000 and/or five years prison for violations on the operation of online casinos and slot machines.
Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis yesterday said the bill – if passed into law – would make it easier for police to deal with the phenomenon of online gambling.
The bill, he added, provides a 3.0 per cent tax on bets as well as the creation of a National Gaming Board, which will supervise all licensed betting shops.
“These casinos and the various establishments that offer online gambling services have sprung up on every corner of Cyprus,” said Stavrakis. “And for the first time there is a complete bill, a law proposal, which strictly bans online casinos and machines that offer online poker and so on; as we all know, one of the problems the police are facing in combating online gambling is that current legislation doesn’t specifically ban the operation of these online casinos.”
With this bill, he added, the operation of online casinos is banned in Cyprus.
“From the moment that it is passed by parliament, which I hope will happen soon, it is up to the police to implement the law. But clearly, these online casinos will have to close and at the same time, a national Gaming Board will be created – as is the case in the rest of the EU – which will comprise of independent officials, who will license, regulate and control all establishments that will offer betting services for all sports.” Stavrakis said all establishments that offer sporting bets, either through online sites or through shops in Cyprus, will be controlled by this Board. “There will also be a tax by the government, which will be three per cent on the total turnover from betting,” he added.
The annual turnover from online betting alone is estimated by officials to be in the range of €2.5 billion. Police Chief Michalis Papageorgiou said any regulation on the matter of online gambling was welcome, adding that whatever the law, the police would implement it.
Papageorgiou was pleased to note that the bill included many of suggestions and proposals made on behalf of the police.
