The most important Czech betting companies will move to Malta, after being discriminated from their own national government, that want to pass a law that will make illegal online betting. The Czech online betting market was estimated at 190 million USD in 2006 and is on the rise, but the Czech Ministry of Finance is expected to submit to Parliament later this year a new gambling bill that doesn’t include the legalization of online betting.
Based on the recent Plancanica Decision of the European Court of Justice (presented by us in an earlier post) the two main actors on the market Tipsport and Fortuna have begun looking at ways to establish betting branches abroad so they can penetrate the Czech online market.
According with Czech Business Weekly Jana StudniÄková, spokeswoman for Czech and Slovak private equity firm Penta Investments, the group that controls Fortuna said :’“We’ve repeatedly failed in our request [to the Ministry of Finance] to receive a license for online betting, so we’re forced to consider other options“
According to Maltese sources, Penta has already submitted a request for an online betting license in Malta, where it could start another online betting company - Fortunawin, that should receive the same treatment as any other European company.
Tipsport is considering moving to Slovakia where online betting is legal and where they have acquired in July 2006 theSlovak Doxx-Stávkové kancelárie betting chain.
Comments 1
i think we should have a website to know in which european countries online betting is legal
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 9:53 pm ¶Post a Comment