程阳：2014年捷克(娱乐场)赌场业综述

 【中文原文全文】  Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people)

 

The Czech Republic has numerous small casinos, encouraged by ownership rules which allow foreign shareholders to invest.

 

Total revenues in the Czech Republic’s casinos fell to €140m in 2013, a decline of 4.1 percent compared with a year before. Slots revenues fell by more than 10 percent to €60m, while table games fared better, suffering just a 3 percent decline.

 

There are 180 casinos in the Czech Republic, compared with 200 that were in existence in 2011. Over the same period jobs created by the country’s casinos fell from 3,000 to 2,800.

 

Although nine land-based operators in the Czech Republic have licences to offer online gambling exclusively for sports betting, the market has tended to be overwhelmed by unlicensed international operations.

 

On November 20, 2013 the Czech Republic was one of seven countries, including Belgium, Cyprus, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden, to see infringement proceedings escalated against them by the European Commission as part of the so-called action plan on online gambling initiated in 2012 by Michel Barnier, the Internal Market EU commissioner. The Czech Republic received a letter of formal notice.

 

In 2013 political turmoil and the resignation of the government delayed the introduction of a long-awaited revision to the country’s gambling laws, but the combination of European and significant popular pressure prompted the Ministry of Finance to unveil the first proposal of its new gambling regulation in early 2014, which would “legalise, tax and properly regulate online gambling operators” in the Czech Republic for the first time.

 

The new regulation was published in October 2014 and is due to be implemented in January 2016, according to the Ministry of Finance.

 

The Czech Republic’s municipalities recently gained much stronger powers to limit VLT numbers and operating hours in their own territories. As part of a revision of the Lottery Act, more attention will be focused on the regulation of machine halls, while casinos, with stricter operating criteria and higher standards of social responsibility, are not expecting significant changes.

 

 Regulator

 

The Czech Republic’s Ministry of Finance carries out the regulation and licensing of casino games, slot machines and lotteries within the scope of Lottery Law no. 202 dating from 1990.

 

Additional supervision is provided by local financial offices, with local municipalities also involved in the licensing process.

 

The current Czech regulatory framework, based on gaming laws from the early 1990s, is largely outdated following the vigorous growth of the gambling sector.

 

Although the Czech Republic notified a new draft gambling act to the European Commission in August 2012, the controversial restrictions imposed on foreign remote gambling operators ensured a critical response from Brussels in November 2012 and none of the measures were subsequently implemented.

 

The commission requested more information on the country’s legislation, which restricts the supply of certain gambling services, and wanted to verify if the measures are compatible with EU law.

 

A letter of formal notice followed in November 2013, but by that time revision of the gambling act was already underway, a process that the newly-elected government has accelerated.

 

The Ministry of Finance unveiled the first version of its new gambling regulation in early 2014, which would “legalise, tax and properly regulate online gambling operators” in the Czech Republic for the first time. A draft bill was then unveiled in October 2014.

 

The ministry said that the new regulation would ensure citizens were protected from pathological gambling, improve state supervision and properly tax all gambling.

 

The government said that the planned changes to the gambling regulation are expected to generate an extra CZK716m (€26m) a year to the state treasury.

 

 

“The new government is strong and can pursue a new act unlike the former one,” said Radim Haluza, CEO of Fortuna.

 

Czech Republic’s Licensed Casino Market

 

Compared with the rest of Europe, the Czech Republic has taken a relatively liberal regulatory approach to gambling, with little state control, fostering an influx of small casinos across the country in the 20 years since the Velvet Revolution of 1989. These barely regulated conditions caused a lot of difficulties for serious operators, making it hard to achieve a reasonable rate of return on their financial investments.

 

Major players include Casinos Austria International, which operates through its subsidiary Czech Casinos; Novomatic, which established its presence through subsidiary company European Data Project (EDP); and American Chance Casinos (ACC), a European subsidiary of publicly-traded US company Trans World Corporation.

 

 

 Casinos are unique in the Czech gaming market in that they do not need to follow the same complex ownership requirements as other providers of gaming services, which prohibit Czech entities with foreign shareholders from obtaining a gaming licence.

 

Casinos may be operated by a Czech entity with foreign investment, if the Ministry of Finance grants this exception, and it is this flexibility with regard to foreign investment that has helped to encourage growth in the numbers of casinos operating in the Czech Republic.

 

New Civic and Corporate Codes became valid in the Czech Republic on January 1, 2014, replacing a Civic Code from 1964 and a Trade Code valid from 1991.

 

 

Poker

 

Until 2011 gambling law amendments came into effect, card games could legally only be played in licensed casinos, but this restriction was widely overlooked by a wide grouping of card clubs constituted as so-called civic associations.

 

Estimates on the number of poker players vary wildly between 10,000 and 200,000, but, in the absence of a law expressly regulating poker outside casinos, no taxes or fees are payable on the fees retained by card clubs.

 

Contributions to Society

 

Gaming tax represents a significant part of the tax income received by local authorities in the Czech Republic.

 

Local budgets absorb 80 percent of the gaming taxation derived from slots operations, providing significant support to local sport, cultural and charity activities.

 

Amendments, which came into force on January 1, 2012, changed the system of charitable contributions, which had previously been directed towards sport, cultural, healthy and general charitable activities. From 2012 onwards the offices of the Ministry of Finance have redistributed this part of the gaming tax.

 

The central state budget absorbed 70 percent of the €29m that casinos paid in gaming taxes in 2013.

 

With more than 2,800 full-time employees in the country’s 180 casino properties alone, casinos and other gaming houses provide a significant boost to Czech employment, particularly in those provincial regions on the German and Austrian border areas that have relatively high unemployment rates.

 

Social Responsibility Measures

 

National legislation requires all customers to be at least 18 years of age.

 

The Ministry of Finance sets out detailed terms and conditions for the operation of each casino licence. It must also approve the operator’s internal controls, visitation plan and the types of games that can be operated. The operator must inform the ministry (and give it at least 30 days’ notice) before it alters any of its internal control procedures or types of games offered.

 

Smoking Ban

 

There is no smoking ban in place in Czech casinos.

 

Problem Gambling Prevention Policies

 

There are no legal requirements for player protection in the Czech Republic, although most Czech casinos follow the guidelines of various institutes and non-governmental agencies, and the conclusions of the study of the social pathological consequences of the Social Responsibility Programme overseen by the Czech Institute for Addiction Research. Additionally, the following measures have been applied:

 

• Special programmes are operated by non-governmental entities (such as the Czech Institute for Addiction Research) to encourage social responsibility by gaming operators.

 

• The conclusions of the study of the social pathological consequences of gambling, revealed in 2013 by the Czech government, will be incorporated into the newly-prepared Gaming Law (expected in January 2016).

 

• City councils, as one of the authorities involved in the licensing process, frequently demand evidence that prospective licensees will behave responsibly. As participants in the licensing process, local authorities require strong and demonstrable social responsibility from the operators as a basic condition for the licence issuance.

 

• Casinos and casino advertising may not be allowed in socalled socially deprived areas.

 

• Credit cards may be used for payments in Czech casinos; subject to approval by the Ministry of Finance which, based on an operator’s application, may license gaming transactions in Czech currency or in other requested currencies.

 

• The exchange office, which is itself regulated by the Czech National Bank, may also oversee the exchange of currencies into the chosen gaming currency.

 

• Operators’ social responsibility programmes incorporate ethics guidelines and provisions for the care of employees as a key part of their internal corporate social responsibility obligations.

 

 

Taxation

 

In January 2012 the Czech Republic’s gaming tax regime was simplified to be defined solely within the lottery law. Previously, the gaming tax had been defined in several different regulations.

 

Casinos, slot machine operators and VLT halls all pay 20 percent of gross gaming revenues, while the machine sector, including VLT operators, pay a fixed fee per machine of CZK55 (€2) per day.

 

Gross gaming revenues are not subject to VAT.

 

 

Until 2011 the gross gaming revenues of casino, slot machine and VLT operators had all been exempted from corporate taxation, but since 2012 that exemption has been removed and all gross gaming revenues are now subject to corporate taxes. VLTs and Slot Machines

 

The Czech Republic’s gambling market remains dominated by VLTs. 2011 data from the Ministry of Finance had VLTs commanding 46.8 percent of market revenues, with traditional slot machines holding a 21.6 percent revenue share and casinos taking 5.3 percent of the market.

 

A consensus has been building for changes in relation to the proliferation of VLTs and the compulsory contributions made by operators to good causes.

 

On June 21, 2011 the lower house of the Czech parliament passed a bill that extended the powers of municipalities to regulate gambling in their territory, with a three-year transition period. Seeking faster results, Klatovy municipality made a complaint to the Constitutional Court in June 2012 which enabled municipalities across the country to limit the number of VLTs on their territory with immediate effect.

 

Slot machine operators and VLTs are currently subject to a variable 20 tax rate of gross gaming revenues and, in addition, must pay a fixed per machine fee of CZK55 (€2) per day.

 

Under the latest 2014 proposals, the Lottery Act will likely be amended to unify the technical conditions for gaming machines and VLTs and will introduce time and spending limits.

 

With regard to the Constitutional Court decision that currently sees slot machine operators seek approval from local authorities to operate VLTs, the government is also seeking to speed up the process by which licence revocations, which must be performed by the Ministry of Finance, can be undertaken.

 

This amendment could be introduced in Summer 2014, according to statements made by Ondřej Závodský, the deputy minister of finance, and could result in the removal of 10,000 of the country’s 60,000 VLTs.

 

The ministry is also believed to be considering a higher tax rate on games that are felt to be more “dangerous” in terms of player addiction, including some categories of slot machines.

 

However, the regulation and taxation of gambling remains a contentious subject in the Czech Republic and some minority political parties are still pursuing a complete ban on slot machines and online casino games.

 

Remote Gambling

 

With the exception of sports betting, online gambling is not regulated in the Czech Republic.

 

Online gambling is currently prohibited for unlicensed operators based outside the country, but licences have been issued to each of nine operators that have a land-based presence where customers are required to register before playing online.

 

However, many foreign online operators offer casino games which are widely advertised in the Czech language.

 

The lottery law does not allow the advertising of games of chance not authorised by the state regulator; however, this does not mean that the advertising of otherwise permitted games are fully allowed as under local restrictions even legal games can be forbidden in those territories.

 

In 2008 the Czech government licensed five domestic betting operators — SAZKA, Synot Tip, Chance, Tipsport and Fortuna — to offer online games at the beginning of 2009. These licence awards have since become the focus of anti-corruption investigations.

 

Three more licences were granted in September 2009 and, as of June 2013, there were nine licensees.

 

Although the Czech Republic notified a new draft gambling act to the European Commission in August 2012, due to the restrictions it would have imposed on foreign remote gambling operators, the draft received criticism from the European Commission that was escalated to a formal notice of infringement in November 2013.

 

Proposed measures that would impose a duty on internet service providers (ISPs) to block advertising and access to games offered by unlicensed operators have also stalled in the face of popular protests.