Greece launches licensing process consultation

The Greek Ministry of Finance has published draft egaming legislation for the issuance of the first online sports betting, live casino and poker licenses, as soon as Q4 2019.

Under the draft proposals, which have been passed for a 30-day public consultation, licenses will be issued for a period of five years, at a price of €4m for sports betting licences and €1m for live casino & poker licences. There will be no cap on how many licences will be issued.

Applicants are required to pay a one-off application fee of €10,000 per license, and authorisations for both types of licences will come from the Hellenic Football Federation, within an agreed timescale of two months.

The current Greek blacklisting of unlicensed operators will continue under the new licensing framework.

Winnings received by players on egaming sites will be taxed at staggered rates based on the amount of winnings received, with no tax being applied to winnings of €100 or less, a 15% tax rate applied to winnings of between €100 and €500 and a 20% tax rate on winnings of €500 or more.

Licensees are required to have a registered office in Greece or another EU country and have paid up capital totalling €200,000 to qualify. Applicants with an office outside of Greece must operate a physical game server within Greece in compliance with Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation data requirements.

All data on licensed activities are required to be retained by the licensee on a separate server for a period of 10 years. In addition, licensees are required to deposit €500,000 with a bank or credit establishment which either operates in Greece or in another EU member state. Any disposal of shares in a licensed business which exceeds 2% must be reported to Greek authorities.

The draft proposals allow for the creation of a centralised register of egaming affiliates, with licensees required to select their affiliate partners from that register. Any affiliate that does not comply with Greek regulations will be removed from the register, preventing licensees from signing affiliate partnerships with them.

No mention is made of in the draft paper of the regulation and licensing of online random number generator (slots) games, which according to Panos Konstantopoulos, CMO of Stoiximan Group, means that “the decision about what will happen with online RNG in the Greek market will be left pending as their rights have not been awarded to anyone either.

“This is without any doubt the main issue in an otherwise reasonable legislation, as it is obviously not smart to exclude a market [RNG] currently operating [and producing revenue and taxes] when you are trying to regulate an industry and I believe this exception will deter many operators from applying for a licence.”

Proposals to re-regulate the Greek gambling market were first introduced by Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos in October 2017, however, at the time egaming licensing and rules were placed at the back of the queue in favour of legalisation and regulation of video lottery terminals and land-based gaming.

After the 30-day consultation window is over, proposals will be passed to the European Commission for approval, with the review process taking approximately four months to complete.

If no objections or amendments are raised by any member state, the proposals will be passed back to the Greek parliament for a final vote early next year, potentially opening the door for the first licences to be awarded as early as Q4 2019.