"Black market gambling will continue to grow if the government gets the regulations stricter", - Giorgi Mamulashvili, head of Georgian Gambling Association declares.
The Deputy Minister of Finance, Mikheil Dundua, announced the possible tightening of legislation against the gambling business last week.
However, the gambling business does not have any additional information on the subject at this stage. Mamulaishvili draws attention to the negative impact of the changes and states that the state agencies are manipulating the wrong statistics.
The association says that by the end of 2022, the amount transferred from Georgia to foreign gambling sites will reach 2 billion. As for local operators, the decrease from March to date is 14%.
"We don't have August data yet, it is being processed now. As of July, the decrease was 13-14% due to the fact that many citizens left the legal operators and moved to foreign sites. Local operators, together with the revenue service, are working very hard to limit the operation of foreign sites, but it is technologically impossible, advertising has increased on social media, and they spend a lot of money on the Georgian market, it would not be like this if they did not have a return.
The work of the National Bank restricts gambling transfers, but there is another side that our opponents do not recognize, these are MSS codes (Merchant Category Code) used by these illegal sites, and funds are usually transferred without any problems," Mamulaishvili explained.
