November 17 - Amidst a government corruption case that has been blown wide
open in Poland, the Prime Minister has declared his intention to make
online casino
gambling illegal and to tax the gambling industry heavily.
A number of scandals that involved top members of the Polish government and
the gambling industry were disclosed in recent weeks.
This was followed by the resignation of four top officials after they were
accused of allowing the gambling industry to influence their political
decisions.
The Ministers of Sport, the Minister of Justice and the Deputy Prime Minister
were among the politicians who resigned after an undercover operation, known as
Operation Blackjack, leaked conversations that pinned them to the crime.
However, many critics of the Prime Minister's decision to ban online gambling
have accused him of trying to sway public attention away from the corruption
scandal and declare the gambling industry as the 'bad guys'.
"He covered the problem of corruption with the problem of gambling," said one
analyst from the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw.
"Politicians and governments that battle corruption in a spectacular way are
doomed to failure, because it's hard to prove later that they were effective,"
he said.
The new laws are yet to be passed, and would require the approval of
parliament and the president.
However, if the Prime Minister's plans go through, it will see slot machine
gaming banned anywhere but inside regulated casinos and a general rise of taxes
on the industry as a whole.
It is believed that Poland will face enormous pressure to remove any bans on
the online casino industry by the European Union, of which the country is a
member state.
Operators outside Poland, such as sportsbetting groups who sponsor Polish
sports teams, will be affected by a change in laws.
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