Just a few days after subsidiary PartyPoker announced that it would withdraw its license application, GVC Holdings revealed that the full brand would also be leaving the country.

Sending a communication to Czech affiliates and media partners, the operator has stated that following a review of market conditions it has concluded that current gaming laws are ‘incompatible with the principles of the European Union’.

During 2016, a number of international operators have complained about the business conditions imposed by the Czech government, stating that they are in direct breach of EU standards.

The gaming industry in Czech Republic is controlled by new legislation, which became effective in January 2017.

Czech gambling authorities have added a burdensome tax charge on online gambling services, which include a 23% of GGR on sports betting revenues combined with a 35% of GGR tax on casino slots play.

Furthermore, the laws require all Czech online gambling consumers to register personal details via an administration center referred to as the ‘Czech Point’ program.

In addition, even national enterprises such as Fortuna Entertainment and Synot Group have complained about ‘’predatory’’ tax levels, which have been deemed unworkable and damaging to wider sports stakeholders.

After Poland, Czech Republic is the second EU country with new regulations which make operators to leave market because of nonsustainable tax regime. It is another example that taxation is very sensitive area and sometimes happens that higher taxes make lower income for Government in wider scope.

Our proposals tend to clarify definitions of online gambling games, and rules that apply to them. We offer our help in defining concept of games on gaming machines, because in our opinion it’s far too broad at present time.

As a group of experianced professionals dealing with gambling/gaming laws across of Europe, we suggest that proposed State Treasury monopoly on gambling machines outside of casinos, and entire online gambling sector is unjustified and detrimental to both players and gambling/gaming industry. In addition to that, we suggest that this kind of monopoly isn’t comatible with the EU laws.

EOGL also propose unified tax base in the form of gross gaming revenue (GGR) insted of confusing and complicated present solution.