Georgia mulls online gambling ban

The European country is considering a total prohibition of online gambling as part of a regulatory crackdown.

Republic of Georgia.- The Republic of Georgia is currently considering a total ban of online gambling activities as new and strong regulations would come into force. Nevertheless, it seems like not everyone in the government is in favor of the online gambling crackdown.

New information emerged last week signaling that special commissions were working in the parliament and the Ministry of Finance to introduce new measures regarding gambling regulations. Whilst the parliament is more likely to be open to ban online gambling in the country, the Ministry of Finance has its doubts. Deputy Finance Minister of Georgia Lasha Khutsishvili said that the subject is being discussed but that international cases show that banning online modalities is not always effective.

”We analyse the world experience to understand how effective are those or other measures taken with respect to online gaming. The international practice shows that at present there are no effective mechanisms to actually prohibit online games. Millions are spent from  the state budget on such measures, but in vain,” said the official.

Khutsishvili believes that the ban would not work as nowadays technologies have more ways to avoid the regulations, and that controlling the internet seems like the only good alternative. “The Finance Ministry is also considering this issue from the point of view of fiscal policy, full control over the Internet is associated with very high costs,” he added.