technical standaRds While the Estonian government only recently established a semi-open market for iGaming operators, their Tax and Customs Board has already put in place technical standards that address many of the key aspects common to any iGaming regulatory regime.
Sections 52 to 56 of their Gambling Act provide technical requirements for iGaming operators to set up shop locally within Estonia. Operators are required to implement some form of player age, identity and residence verification, and prevent underage players from establishing an account. Each player’s account must be tracked for bets and wins using the player’s nominated currency, for a period no less than five years, so that it can be reported to the Tax and Customs Board and other Estonian government authorities upon request.
Operators are required to publish the game rules and payouts to the player, and notify the player of the addictive nature of gambling, including contact information for some form of problem gambling service. Players must be provided with a variety of options for self- imposed game play limitations and exclusions, in a concerted effort to promote responsible gaming and player protection.
Games are required to exhibit random outcomes that are fully recorded by the system, and be protected against inappropriate
or illicit influence from the operator or any other person.
These technical requirements are assessed either by the Tax and Customs Board directly, or through an ISO 17025-accreditated third- party test house. In the case of a test house, a formal written assessment report must be submitted to the Tax and Customs Board.
While these requirements are a good start, they address many of iGaming’s critical issues from a high-level perspective only, leaving much to interpretation. This has the potential to make the landscape of compliance in Estonia more difficult to traverse for suppliers, operators and third-party test houses alike.
Time will tell as to whether the Tax and Customs Board will take their regulatory regime to the next level, where comprehensive technical requirements are documented in rigorous and calculated detail, as is the standard for many of the top-tier jurisdictions in Europe and around the world.
playeRs’ accounts must Be tRacked foR a peRiod no less than five yeaRs.
comment
Estonia introduced a regulatory system for online gambling on 1 January 2010. The gaming duty rate is favourable compared to other European regimes, at 5% of gross gambling yield. Despite this, uptake of licences has been slow, probably due to the relatively small size of the target market, Estonia having a population of just over one million.
Julian Harris, Partner, Harris Hagan harris@harrishagan. com
27
estonia
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68