Albania has long since struggled with gambling in the country and back in 2019 banned all forms of gambling except a few land based casinos, however after three years lawmakers are now making efforts to regulate and allow for online gambling to return under a stronger framework.
On Wednesday this week the government released its draft law on internet gambling in an attempt to ensure there are no illegal unauthorised gambling within the country.
Some of the details for allowing online gambling include, only accepting digital payments no third party payments accepted or direct payments to the operator, must be a registered, recognised supplier of payments.
All data on players registering must be kept for a minimum of three years and only pre-registered players can gamble. The storing and keeping of personnel data must be in accordance of laws to be set down at a later date.
No cash is allowed to be accepted by an agent or operator of online gambling, to accept cash would breach licensing regulations, this has been placed within the regulations to stop money laundering.
All operators must deposit in a recognised bank a sum of €1.5 million to ensure payments for customers, this deposit must be equivalent of 5% of all deposits made, so can be more than mentioned but not less. This holding account is regulated by the Finance Ministry.
A further €450,000 must be kept in a separate bank account to ensure licensing and regulation payments to the government. All registered companies wishing to run and operate online gambling must be a joint-stock company headquartered in Albania and registered with the National Business Centre.
A set limit of 15% corporate tax has been announced for all operators, the regulations will now be checked and placed into law by the National Agency of Information Society with any amendments made.
The timeline for passing the laws needed to restore online gambling have not been mentioned and could take the remainder of this year to allow for the creation of online gambling to start in 2024.
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