Mare Balticum Gaming Summit announces date
Mare Balticum Gaming Summit 2018 is destined to the industry in the Baltic and Scandinavian region.
Latvia.- The inaugural edition of Mare Balticum (Baltic Sea) Gaming Summit Riga will be held on the May 8 at Astor Riga in Latvia. The Baltic and Scandinavian region provide a great wealth of knowledge when it comes to online gambling. The regulations in the region have been carefully adjusted and the current status of the markets show good investment potential.
The region is known to adapt quickly to changes and it’s flexible towards involving digital innovations. This is why the Baltic and Scandinavian region is good adopter of quality measurements that insure the online and land based gambling co-exist.
Focus on Latvia
With the recent changes in the licensing fee which came after Latvia’s parliament announced that the license fee for live casino services in the country will now be set at €400,000 ($475,900) per year.
Previously, a variable fee of €11,700 per live casino table per year had been up for discussion, but has now seemingly been discarded in favor of an overall fee.
The fee will be implemented from January 1 and apply to all operators that wish to offer live casino in Latvia.
Sweden
Gaming industry in Sweden will face new legislative conditions, once the draft is approved by the government. A new framework for the gaming industry in Sweden has been introduced and it could soon end the iGaming monopoly under the control of Svenska Spel. The updated legislation could take effect by 2019 modifying the current regime, although legislators are set to carry out further debates on the issue.
The state-owned gambling operator Svenska Spel accounted 40 percent of the entire market in the first nine months of 2016, and generated more than US$1.7 billion in revenue in the third quarter, 5 percent higher than the previous year. Now the company may share the Swedish market with local and international online gaming operators, as the government would approve the new legislative draft.
Sweden is in the process of revamping its gambling market, which will not only see the likely privatization of Svenska Spel but also the end of its de facto online gambling monopoly. While the new regime won’t take effect until well after next September’s national elections, Lotteriinspektionen has invited would-be online licensees to submit applications for licensure as of July 2018.
Focus on Denmark
Morten Ronde, CEO of the Danish Online Gambling Association (DOGA) and speaker of the Summit, stated earlier in an online interview that when it comes to the Danish gambling market: “The numbers speak for themselves. When the numbers for the online gambling market in Denmark are shown to regulators in other European countries they attract a lot of attention. There is still interest in various European jurisdictions in adopting DK-style regulation.”
The event will also focus on bringing high quality content about the opportunities in Estonia, Lithuania and will also discuss the latest innovations in the technology area of the industry.
The inaugural event will give a good opportunity for international gaming operators and vendors to touch base with the regulators that will be present at the event. The intention and mission of the event is to bring together industry professionals and regulators for the Baltic and Scandinavian region in order to discuss the future of the industry of the region.
