Gambling law amendments approved in Poland

Polish lawmakers have approved amendments to the country’s gambling legislation. Once signed by the president Andrzej Duda, the new changes will take effect on April 1, 2017. The changes to the Polish Gambling Act have already been accepted by both legislative chambers of Poland.

Many of the changes purposed are already known to the public. The official reason for amending the law is to protect the players against the risk to excessive gambling and to deal with the unlicensed part of the market. However, that is not it. Adding online casino, bingo and poker games to the current online sports betting products extends the number of the permitted games significantly. Further, the new legal options will be solely dependable on the Totalizator Sportowy state gambling monopoly, which will leave international operators out of the game.

The attempts of internationally licensed operators to serve Polish users will be prevented by IP- and payment-blocking mechanisms. That is planned to be done no later than July 1, 2017.

In the meantime, Polish-licensed betting operators will be allowed to have some advertising however, the ads of banking services on their websites will be prohibited.

The amendment will not change the rules of the highly controversial 12% turnover tax which has already significantly limited the interest of operators willing to participate in Polish gaming market. However, a separate amendment regarding this matter is planned in the future.