Slovenian parliamentary committee introduces sports betting bill

As reported by Total Slovenia News, Branko Zorman, MP for the senior coalition Modern Centre Party (SMC) has drafted a proposal to liberalise the sports betting market to foreign providers. He claims they currently operate in the country, but without licences or tax payments.

Current gambling regulations in Slovenia restrain games of chance to two operators: the national lottery Loterija Slovenije and sports betting firm Sportna Loterija.

The lawmaker argues that the monopolistic position of Sportna Loterija is only "artificial" since Slovenian residents place bets mostly with foreign providers. In this way, taxes from bets are not collected in the Slovenian tax system, and consumers do not enjoy proper safeguards.

The providers would need to obtain a licence and would also pay licence fees, which would, in turn, generate more funds for sports and for disability and humanitarian organisations, while limiting betting by Slovenian citizens with providers abroad.

The government does not support the proposal, arguing that it does not address alignment with the EU law comprehensively, does not lift restrictions capping private ownership in gaming operators and does not tackle red tape.

Based on remarks from the parliament's legal office, Zorman has drawn up amendments, which the committee endorsed on Tuesday along with the bill with 12 votes in favour and four against.

Most committee members spoke out against monopoly, accusing the Finance Ministry it had left changes in the field on the back burner.

Finance Ministry State Secretary Gorazd Rencelj noted that the ministry had drawn up a proposal to comprehensively tackle the field in 2016 but there was no political will to pass it.

Sportna Loterija chairman Edvard Kolar said that the Zorman-sponsored bill would not bring improvements and was not addressing problems such as illegal gambling, harmful advertising, scams, addiction, risky betting products and risk of result rigging.

Unaffiliated MP Andrej Cus commented that Zorman had "stirred up a hornet's nest" and Jani Moderndorfer from the SMC added: "Every time anyone has undertaken to reform the area, they got their fingers burnt." He said that "sports would get much more when this monopoly is gone."

Marko Pogacnik from the opposition Democrats (SDS) said he was against monopolies, arguing that such a bill should have been sponsored by the Finance Ministry.