At the meeting of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Economic Affairs on April 26, the main provisions of amendments to the laws "On Lotteries" and "On Gambling, Online Gambling, and Casinos" were presented.
According to existing legislation, in case of default on tax and other payments obligations set for lotteries, gambling, and casino organization licenses, the license's validity is suspended. However, existing enterprises sometimes require additional time to meet these requirements.
Under the new proposals, the tax authority must notify the authorized body of any defaults within 5 days before suspending the license. However, it is recommended to extend the notification period to 10 days to avoid creating unnecessary obstacles for normal business operations.
It is important to note that the proposed changes do not affect obligations to pay annual state fees.
The proposed changes will come into effect on the 10th day after official publication. The Commission approved the government's proposal.
According to data from the State Revenue Committee, in January-August 2023, the volume of bets placed in internet gaming amounted to 3.9 trillion drams (approximately $10 billion).
This figure is a record compared to previous years: for the same period in 2019, bets totaling 658 billion drams (over $1.5 billion) were placed, for the first eight months of 2020 - 1.2 trillion (over $3 billion), in 2021 - 2.3 trillion (about $6 billion), and in 2022 - 3.7 trillion (about $9.8 billion).
