Czech Republic says it will relax player verification regulations

[The Buzz]

The online gambling industry in the Czech Republic was hit hard when the Czech AML Act was released n 2017 by the Ministry of Finance, forcing citizens to complete a face-to-face customer verification procedure before they were approved to use different banking methods at sports betting and online casino sites.

The new Act imposed a 35% gaming tax on all online gaming activities and a 23% tax on gross gaming revenues for all sports betting activities, prompting many operators -- including William Hill, bet365 and GVC Holdings -- to flea the market.

That may change after the announcement that the new 5th anti-money laundering directive promises to "modernize banking and compliance regulations to allow remote customer verification by individual banks."

Currently, the Czech sports betting market is dominated by three local operators: Tipsport, Fortuna and Synot.

From Focus Gaming News:

Denisa Marcekova, head of the Czech & Slovak Internet Gambling Association, said such bank ID checks would be welcomed by operators.

She said: “I strongly believe this is a significant step in the right direction. I hope that the recently launched governmental review of the Czech gambling regulation will result in even smoother access to the market in the near future.”

Read more here: https://focusgn.com/hope-for-reform-...ng-regulations

[Cash Bonus]

Verification is important and this is a good thing to see. They have to verify all of their players and not take anyone for granted. They can never be certain of who they're dealing with. No one can. There's too much fraud these days.

[Casino Gamerz]

I think the Czech market is about to become more popular for operators following this.. its not a market ive had much experience in but could be interesting

[Sherlock]

No, it will not be popular.

[PROFRBcom]

No, it will not be popular.

Is that because player values are poor?

[Sherlock]

It is in short, because the Czechia has one old saying: The carps will not discharge their own pond.

In other words if there is some less strict ID verification (in the past and maybe even now I believe the online player had to go to brick and mortar shop to verify), then the verification will serve just for the established oligopoly. You can imagine that oligopoly as RIP Sheldon.

As one new ministry of finance said: "I am scared to come to my department of gambling (the gambling department is one of subsections of ministry of finance), because the people working there are all defacto employees of the few established gambling monopolies."

There is nothing just corruption. The laws are defacto made by gambling companies and the goal is to maximize their revenue by closing the market. The market is de iure open, because they can not close it in EU. But defacto is closed.

Czechia is just another wonderful state where you do not know whethere it is a mafia or not. Now there is another law that is coming with a rule that in supermarkets have to be at least 55% of domestic agriculture production. The premier (=the most pwerful) and about 2nd richest man of the contry, former agent of communist secret police, is also owner of biggest agro business there.

I do not say it is something exceptional in this world. Just I can assure you that Czech market is not interesting fro gambling and will not be unless some bigger country (Germany, Russia or China) will occupy it as in the past.

Czech republic was moderately interesting in the past, when the oligopoly did not want to legalise online betting, so bet365 or bwin was cashing big there. But now the oligopoly is forcing all ISPs the block websites of "illegal" bookies and there is nearly no offshore bookie that allows Czechs to bet. There is one very good, but I will not mention it here. Because the ******* maybe read this thread.

Police and department of finance went after me because I have a very small gambling forum. It is not even illegal, but it does not matter anymore. It is just about who has the power. They can not for example sue you, but they can do proper IRS check and they will always find something. For example is common that if someone is not liked by the premier or the people by power, the bank accounts of companies are frozen until the company has to file for bankruptcy. Then those companies can sue, but count a decade+ to get some funny result.

I am not upset from this. This is how world is and always was even in the USA even if you maybe do not want to see it. But I am upset to read a random nonsense from people who are clueless.