A year after regulation, Czechs tighten betting market

At the same time, lawmakers are seeking to amend legislation to prohibit foreign gambling operators from advertising their services to Czech residents.

The Association of Odds Betting Operators (APKURS), which consists of leading Czech companies Chance, Fortuna, Sazka, Synot Tip and Tipsport - together with the Czech Football Association (FA) and National Police - have created a system to monitor bets on domestic football matches in real time and report suspicious activity to the FA. The FA can then take appropriate action or pass the information on to the police for further investigation.

The system was first piloted at the start of the 2010 football season and enables those involved to react to suspicious developments “within tens of minutes” according to APKURS. This is the first time that betting operators and sports and national authorities have worked together to combat the problem of match-fixing in the Czech Republic.

The move is in response to the increasing popularity of sports betting in the country, particularly via the internet, which APKURS estimates to be worth more than 1 billion euros annually.

Czech lawmakers are also seeking to amend the country’s lottery law to prohibit foreign online gaming companies from advertising their services there, with a penalty of up to us$ 2,582 for those that fail to comply. The move is supported by APKURS, but is unpopular with Czech sports clubs, many of whom have profited from lucrative sponsorship agreements with European online gaming operators.

The proposed amendment to the law is the first since the Czech Republic passed new legislation in December 2008 in order to allow domestic operators to offer online gaming services. The new legislation took effect in January 2009 and up until that point, it was Czech operators that were discriminated against, being prohibited from moving online while foreign operators were free to serve the market.