Surprising Online Casino Ban Announced by Georgia

In a surprising announcement, it was announced that Georgia is in the process of banning online casinos and other forms of gambling-related to ‘games of chance’.

Historically Georgia has been pro-online gambling noting that the industry represents a way of growing the country’s revenues through keeping gambling spend ‘in-house’ rather than seeing it drawn off by unregulated operators.

At the present time, the country is an iGaming business centre and does not legally allow its citizens to gamble online but has turned a blind eye to it in lieu of writing its own gambling act into force in the future.

A Light Touch and Welcome Arms

As recently as June 2020 Georgia amended its stance on online gambling to include moderately increased fees and taxes while requiring that operators have a business and legal presence in the country.

The changes put its legislation on par with other regulated jurisdictions like Malta, Great Britain, and Sweden. The one point of contention, much like was seen with Australia’s gambling regulation, is that while operators can run their casinos from Georgia, they cannot officially accept players from Georgia.

This has led to most of Georgia’s online casino spending being swept up by offshore casinos with no connection to the country.

Prime minister Irakli Gharibashvili commented on this saying:

“1.5bn Georgian Lari (€460m) is exported from the country through online casinos. Our citizens and the young generation play in online casinos on a daily basis and lose their money.”

The iGaming community expected this financial reality to spur Georgia to bring a multi-license gambling act into play, however, it has had the opposite effect with Gharibashvili announcing harsh restrictions ahead of a total ban.

 A Dark Future for Online Gambling

Discussing the future of online gambling for Georgian residents the Prime Minister made it crystal clear that the administration has no intention to facilitate the hobby regardless of the population clear desire to participate.

Gharibashvili has announced that the country will be implementing a “two-phase approach” approach to making it illegal for online games of chance in the country.

The first step will see the implementation of heavy taxation on gambling revenues generated from play in Georgia. Finance Minister Lasha Khutsishvili noted that the new bill will outline include a “substantial increase on online casino taxes, prohibition of online casino advertising and an increase in the minimum age for gambling to 25 years of age”.

The final step will be writing anti-gambling legislation into force which will make it illegal for local players to participate in any online games of chance and other yet unspecified gambling activities for real money.

A Tiny Sliver of Hope

The only sliver of hope in this announcement is that Gharibashvili mentioned that this is a measure intended to protect the population while the government looks for ways to properly govern gambling.

For our money, they should follow the example of leading regulatory jurisdictions and simply copy and paste how the measures and limitations they have spent years play-testing.