The Ministry of Finance will prepare and submit to the Government a proposal for the new Law on Games of Chance by December 31 this year, it was stated in the second annex of the contract with the Ministry of Finance of Slovakia, to which the Montenegrin Government gave its consent on Thursday.
The basic contract, which stipulated that the Government of Slovakia, with a non-refundable donation of one million euros, would help Montenegro bring order to the field of games of chance through the adoption of a new law and the improvement of technical supervision of organizers of games of chance was signed in December 2018.
The Slovak side immediately fulfilled its part of the obligations and paid half a million euros to the Montenegrin ministry, and the rest was to be paid when the Montenegrin side fulfilled its part of the obligations. At that time, Montenegro undertook to adopt the Law on Games of Chance by October 31, 2019 and to prepare technical IT specifications for monitoring income from the organization of games of chance, which did not happen.
According to unofficial information from "Vijesti", the working version of the new law is in the final stage of preparation and should soon be put up for public discussion. The Government expects that by the end of the year, it will fulfill its obligations towards its partner from Europe.
For 15 years, the adoption of a new gambling law that would increase state revenues and reduce the risk of money laundering has been announced, but it has been repeatedly postponed. Technical online supervision of organizers partially came to life in 2016, after 14 years of delay, which increased state revenues and proved to be justified.
In the explanation of the new annex to the contract, it is stated that the new law will improve the system of games of chance in accordance with the best European practice and reduce fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
"It will ensure equal and uniform treatment of all organizers of games of chance on the market, but also create better conditions for simpler and more efficient control of the development of this area and control of organizers - concessionaires, as well as greater fiscal discipline and better collection of income from games of chance, in a way that will reduce the scope for malfeasance, tax evasion and non-payment of fees", the explanation reads.
In the annex of the contract, there is room left if the Government fails to fulfill its obligation again, which is unlikely to happen despite the influential gambling lobby, because it would damage the reputation of Montenegro in front of its European partners.
The government must submit a written report on the strategic implementation of the project to the Slovak ministry no later than December 31. If he does that, Slovakia will pay the remaining half a million euros in grants by the end of January next year. If the gambling lobby overrides the state interest and obligations are not fulfilled again, Slovakia will not have any obligations towards Montenegro.
In all previous announcements from the Government over the past 16 years, it has always been emphasized that this new law will bring order to this area, increase state revenues, reduce malfeasance, money laundering and tax evasion.
The total income of all organizers of games of chance, according to reports submitted to the Tax Administration, amounted to 105 million euros last year, while the state receives 18 million from fees.
Existing law with loopholes for the privileged
Online supervision now includes bookmakers with terminals and betting sites, slot clubs and slot machines in casinos, while this type of state supervision is not provided for lottery games and table games in casinos. It is possible that the scope of the games will be increased by the changes, but certain norms will also be specified so that it does not happen that individual organizers - Lottery, Flesh&As and Jackpot can avoid putting their slot clubs under supervision for years.
The new law should regulate lottery games, which have not existed since the end of 2016, when the extended concession of the Montenegro Lottery expired. Due to ambiguities in the law, this organizer used the "right" for years to present the sportsbook as a "toto" lottery game and thus avoid paying 500 euros per month per betting site, of which there were up to a hundred.
The regulation of the issue of terminals in catering facilities was also announced, for which part of the rulebook was abolished by the Constitutional Court in February 2017. The state budget has received about 14 million euros from terminals in the past six years.
Minister of Finance Darko Radunović said in the Parliament in June 2018 that through the new law they will try to find a model to relocate the terminals, but he also admitted that "they got themselves into quite a bit of legal trouble."
"We are looking for a solution on how to carry out all this without paying large compensations to the concessionaires with a valid concession," said Radunović at the time.
The law should also increase the protection of minors from betting, determine new amounts of concessions because the existing ones are more than a decade old, consider the abolition of a one-time fee of two million euros for the start of casino operations...
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