The Minister of Finance Lasha Khutsishvili presented a new model for regulating gambling at the government meeting today.
According to him, along with the planned tightened regulations in Georgia, control over foreign gambling websites and payment card providers, which are registered in Georgia will be tightened, and the transfer of funds to the accounts associated with foreign gambling systems will be prohibited.
As a result of the new regulations, the gambling age in the country will be increased to 25, as well as the right of gambling to be restricted to public officials, while the socially vulnerable will no longer be able to register and play in gambling systems. The possibility of transferring money from one person to another is also prohibited.
According to the Minister of Finance, the ban as a whole will affect up to 1 million citizens, which should reduce the turnover of gambling. To offset this reduction for the budget, the taxes imposed on the sector are rising sharply, as a result of which the budget will have to receive about the same amount of taxes (300-400 million GEL).
The new model for regulating gambling is as follows:
"Taxation rules are completely changing for the online gambling business, in particular Gross gaming revenue (GGR) will be charged with 10% tax instead of the distributed profit tax. GGR reflects the difference between the amount of money players wager minus the amount that they win. In addition, returned earnings will be taxed with 2% income tax.
In total, the tax base for the gambling sector will increase by 60-65%," Lasha Khutsi said.
Last week, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili announced, that the government was primarily thinking of increasing taxes for online gambling, banning advertising and raising the threshold to 25 years.
