Ramp for the gambling bill

The Legislative Committee did not support the Bill on Amendments to the Law on Games of Chance

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Deputies are discussing five proposals for financial laws today: from yesterday's session of the Legislative Committee, Photo: Parliament
Deputies are discussing five proposals for financial laws today: from yesterday's session of the Legislative Committee, Photo: Parliament
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

The draft law on amendments to the Law on games of chance, which provides for the introduction of larger amounts of concessions for games of chance over the internet and for casinos, is not in accordance with the Constitution and the legal system, it was decided at yesterday's session of the parliamentary Legislative Committee.

Representative of the Association of Organizers of Games of Chance Montenegro bet Jovana Klisic, who attended the session, pointed out that the proposed changes are contrary to the Law on Concessions, because in December 2019 the provisions concerning the granting of concessions to organizers of lottery games of chance and special games of chance in casinos were deleted from it.

That was enough of a signal for six MPs to abstain from voting, while only the SNP MP Dejan Vukic supported the proposal.

State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance Ilija Vukcevic he said that the Law on Concessions has nothing to do with the Law on Games of Chance, which is a "lex specialis" and emphasized that the proposed changes introduce a new concession fee for organizing certain games of chance via the Internet.

In his reply to Klisić, he stated that the proposal for changes regulates matter that the organizers had no right to organize, but they did, and that the idea was to introduce them into the legal system.

If the amendments to the law were adopted, the organizers of online games of chance would pay a fixed part of the concession, as before, 10.000 euros per month, but for the first time, a variable concession of 10 percent would be introduced to them on the difference between total payments and payouts of winnings.

In addition, it was also planned that instead of a one-time fee of two million euros, which was paid when the concession was issued, and an annual fee of 50.000 euros, a monthly concession of 41.666 euros would be introduced at the casino. This concession amount would also apply to online casinos.

The legislative committee supported the other five financial laws, which the deputies will discuss at today's session.

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