Ireland to get New Gambling Regulatory Body

Ireland officials are seriously planning on making some fundamental changes in the country’s iGaming market and will be soon getting a new regulatory body.

Even though those changes will most certainly happen soon, the new gambling regulator won’t be in charge of the market until late 2020, at the earliest.

The New Regulator

Just this Wednesday, the Irish government voted in favor of getting a new and improved regulatory watchdog in this island country in the North Atlantic. The task of the new regulator will be to oversee all gambling activities in the state…

…including online betting and they will also be issuing licenses and imposing penalties on operators who don’t respect the laws.

In an official report issued by an Irish interdepartmental working group, it is also mentioned that the regulatory body should also have the task to monitor the gambling market and maintain sport integrity.

The regulator should also ban unpermitted behavior like issuing credits to customers that they could use for gambling purposes.

More Tasks

But, not only that, it is mentioned that the gambling regulator will also have to impose daily, weekly and monthly limits of spending on gambling.

Irish government officials, on the other hand, noted that the formation of the new regulatory body, that will have to work closely with the Department of Justice, will actually take some time. So, it is expected that the new regulator will officially commence its work in around 18 months.

David Stanton, Minister of State, said that the “ultimate aim” is to make sure that the regulator becomes “self-financed” via fees and levies that the licensed operators will pay to the state because they are conducting gambling activities.

These companies will also have to empower and finance a new “social” fund that will actually the research of negative effects of excessive gambling, conduct campaigns on potential gambling harms…

…and offer treatments to gamblers who suffer from related problems.

The New Amendment Bill

The Irish government also approved the new Gaming and Lotteries Bill for 2019. The new Amendment bill will update the outdated rules that are currently being used in the national gambling sector.

According to the new rules, only customers of 18 years or older will be able to place their wagers. It was necessary to introduce this measure as a law because it was mentioned in the latest survey that even underage individuals were able to access land-based gambling products.

Since the prize limit for gaming machines in Ireland hasn’t been changed since 1956, the new bill will most definitely have to cover that task as well. The plan is to raise stake limits from three cents to 10 euros…

…while the main prizes will top out at 750 euros, rather than their current 50 cents.

Tax for the Operators

Just recently, betting operators in the country were hit with a doubling of their betting turnover tax that rose from 1% to 2%. This jump in tax rate was met with many major betting shops closing, as predicted by the Irish Bookmakers Authority.

This state body is currently pressuring the government to change tax rates on betting revenue and make them less harsh.

Source:

“Ireland to get new gambling regulatory body, eventually”, Peter Amsel, calvinayre.com, March 21, 2019.