The Legality of Online Gambling in Estonia

Posted by Vikram Kumar on June 20th, 2014

Online gambling in Estonia is not yet fully developed, but it has the possibility for fast development. If you are seeking for new chances for business development Estonia will be worthwhile. Though the populace of Estonia hasn’t reached 1.5M there are more than a hundred and fifty casinos and gambling sites there operating at the moment and there’s around eighty percent of the adult populace that have gambled at least once in their lifetime. Online gambling there is still in the process of development, since gambling through online sites has become legal just in 2010.

The government of Estonia took a step to recuperate the economy after the crisis that took place in 2008. The government gave Estonian residents the chance to play online, but only on sites with license to operate. Any casino site without the license to operate will soon be blocked by the government. Though it doesn’t really mean that that the European community legislation or at least the operators from Europe must be function in other European countries without getting the license in every country. It’s just the officials in Estonia who claims that this is just a temporary method and this is just the first leap that they have taken going to the smooth and legal way of operating online gambling in their country.

Legislation of online gambling in Estonia

The lotteries act of 1994 and the gambling act of 1995 are the first two that were regulated by the gambling industry in Estonia. Those were very important as they head up in binding things together and in regulating the activities of the people concerning gambling. On the other hand the acts failed to give any legal basis for controlling online gambling. As online gambling goes on, there is a new gambling act that was introduced to Estonians, but its functions are only limited in the form of draft proposal. In 2008, there is a new Act that was adopted and it became an important part of the legislation which is the Gambling Tax Act that spells out the taxation model for different gambling companies that offer игры онлайн (games online).

Activity gaming licenses and operations

For casinos to operate in Estonia, they are required to get a gambling license there. This rule is appropriate for EU and non-EU residents and companies as well. To be more specific, they need to get two licenses and these are the activity license and the operating license respectively. In the activity license it will certify that the applicant who would like to organize an online gambling business in Estonia is a reputable person and will conform to the requirements of the gambling act at first hand.

If the law asks them to submit documents under certain conditions for a gambling activity, they should be able to comply with those documents very well. The activity license will be given for an unspecified term and it is non-transferrable.  The operating license or better known as the operating permit should be accomplished by the company or the person before establishing the type of gambling such as lotteries, slot machines and so on. The applications for the licenses must be submitted to the tax and custom board of Estonia before they can operate игры онлайн (games online).

Online gambling in Estonia - https://www.kingswin.com is still in the process of development, since gambling on игры онлайн (games online) through online sites has just become legal in 2010.