Reports EMEA - CZECH REPUBLIC
Te Good, Te Bad and Te Ugly
The Czech Republic has seen new gambling legislation introduced which Czechs say will divide the industry into ‘good’ gambling and ‘bad’ gambling. It is expected to reduce the number of gaming locations in the country, increase taxes and see the online gambling market open up increasing competition for domestic operators.
Since the year 2000 the Czech Republic has been divided into 13 regions and the capital city of Prague. Each region has its own elected Regional Assembly and President, whilst in Prague the powers are executed by the city council and the mayor.
Te older 73 districts including three ‘statutory cities’ were disbanded in 1999 in an administrative reform. Tey do however remain as territorial divisions and seats of various branches of state administration.
Czech has some 10.5 million inhabitants and the economy gets a substantial income from tourism. Revenue from tourism amounted to CzK238bn in 2014 which is nearly three per cent of the GDP. Inbound tourism accounted to just over 60 per cent of this whilst the remaining was from domestic visitors.
Some 500,000 are indirectly employed via the tourism sector whilst a total of 27.8 million tourists visited Czech in 2015 – an eight per cent increase from the previous years. Half of the
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tourists arrived for just one day and spend around CzK2,700 daily.
Tere is an increase in the number of tourists from the US and Asian countries whilst Germans and Slovaks account for the daily visitors.
Te gambling market in Czech has traditionally been highly successful and a cash cow for many European manufacturers who have long filtered AWP, casino and VLT products into the country.
Some 10,200 people are employed in the betting and gaming industry and the number of machines has been fairly steady with around 50,000 units listed by the Ministry of Finance in May 2016 which is divided up between AWPs, casino slots and VLTs.
In terms of ratio there is roughly one machine per 200 people which is the highest number per capita in the EU. It is said more than two thirds of Czech adults gamble and there are gambling halls on most street corners with around 7,300
gaming venues made up of slot halls (hernas) and 171 casinos in the country according to figures from the Ministry of Finance.
In 2015 players bet CzK152.2bn on the various types of gambling in the Czech market which was 10.2 per cent higher than the previous year. Some CzK121.8bn was paid out in prizes which was 14.1 per cent more than the previous year. Total revenues from all gambling activities in Czech in 2015 amounted to Czk30.4bn.
VLTs have the biggest market share in terms of revenue with 32.2 per cent and saw revenues of Czk12.8bn last year followed by internet sports betting sector (25 per cent) with CzK4.1bn and then gaming machines (21.1 per cent) with Czk4bn in revenues.
Te gaming machine revenue is a huge increase on previous figures which in 2014 was CzK2.4bn and Czk2.6bn in 2013 although the sector saw highs of Czk4bn back in 2012.
VLTs on the other hand have seen steady
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