The Greek Ministry of Finance has announced they have submitted their draft gambling regulations to the European Commission for approval. This move looks to accommodate the governing body’s regulations in regards to new controls of the gambling industry.
The submission is specifically geared toward online sports betting and other online games, where operators are required to have a license to operate these kinds of operation, and where the price of such a license is €3 million ($3.4 million) for online betting and €2 million for casino-style games. The length of these licenses will be for a term of seven years.
This submission is a big change for the Greek government. This will be the first time that they have actually fully licensed and regulated operators of online betting operations.
The highlight of the submission looks to be the strict controls that the government will implement on random generator games (RNG). These types of games will have a maximum stake of €2, with the maximum award that can be earned capped at €5,000. In addition, jackpot games will be limited to a maximum of €500,000.
Added to the new provision is that all advertising will be banned for RNG products. This means that operators can only promote these games on their website or through their own phone app. These restrictions will not apply to any other types of online gaming activities, such as sports betting, poker, or casino-style games.
As part of this submission, the Greek government took a hard line with operators who have been blacklisted previously. These operators and ones moving forward will be banned form submitting an application to receive a license for a minimum of 12 months.
These reforms were first approved by the Greek parliament back in October and were designed specifically to boost the economic development of the struggling country. The bill passed by a fairly narrow margin of 165 to 122 and was approved by the country’s president, Prokopis Pavloooulos, who signed the bill into law. It is hoped that this will create an influx of additional capital to the country which can be used for the Invest in Greece program.
The plan has had its challenges, however. In November, they were intending to issue casino licenses but a foul-up with the paperwork created a delay. It took a few days to resolve the issue and now everything looks to be back on track.
