Bill Amendment Of The Gambling Act Passed Second Test Successfully

Today, a Bill amending and liberalizing the Gambling Act ("Bill") successfully passed second reading in the Budget and Finance Commission in the Bulgarian Parliament, after passing its first plenary voting upon tense disputes on December 4, 2013.

The second and final plenary voting is expected to happen before Christmas and the Bill to come into force on January 1, 2014. Amendments in the Bill are still possible, though not likely to happen.

Any liberalization of the gaming regime usually faces strong opposition based upon public interest issues, including addiction prevention arguments and concerns that changes in the taxation model will hurt the state budget.

However, we have to face facts. One and a half years after the adoption of the present Gambling Act, nothing has changed drastically. The unauthorized sites are still easily accessible, there is no queuing for remote gambling licenses as once predicted, and the new revenue streams to the state treasury