G3-247 Report LITHUANIAN MARKET REPORT
LITHUANIA: Vital Statistics Capital: Vilnius Population: 3,505,738 Land Area: 65,
300sq.km Currency: Litai (LTL) (Euro in 2015) Median age: 41.2 years Languages: Lithuanian (82%), Russian (8%), Polish (5.6%), other (0.9%) Ethnic Groups: Lithuanian (84%), Polish (6.6%), Russian (5.8%), Belarusian (1.2%) Government: Parliamentary democracy Chief of State: President Dalia Grybauskaite Head of Government: Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius (Lithuanian Social Democratic Party/LSDP) Cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the president on the nomination of the Prime Minister and approval of parliament. Elections: President elected by popular vote for a five year term. Last election held in May 2014 and next due in 2019.
requirement, the minimum paid share capital require- ment and the requirement to open a certain amount of land based establishments.
Vyte Danileviciute, Senior Associate at SORAINEN law firm in Lithuania said: “It seems that the working group on the draft Gaming Law disregarded the majority of the comments received with respect to the earlier bill as well as the raised voice of the European Commission. Effectively this means that there is no clear consensus as to how the online gaming industry in Lithuania will be shaped and that no quick outcome can be expected from the legislative process.
“This time the draft Gaming Law has also drawn the attention of network operators. The bill establishes the right for the gaming supervisory body to order network operators to remove information related to illegal gam- ing or to limit the accessibility of such information. This
Several foreign operators have websites available in the
Lithuanian language, but these exist uncontrolled and of course the state government is losing vast amounts of taxable
revenue and so the situation needs to change.
provision has already been criticised by a member of the parliament as superfluous and as establishing internet censorship.”
The new draft law follows the role of previous bills par- ticularly its predecessor XIP4393 and the only change in regard to the current bill is that it will allow companies established in other EU member states (private limited liability companies) the right to set up gambling prac- tices in Lithuania.
The main point of the new draft new state:
l The right to provide remote gambling services shall be made available to public and private limited com- panies with a gambling operator licence. They must have a branch established in Lithuania.
l They must have opened at least one casino or at least five betting shops for horseracing, or at least 10 gam- ing halls or at least 20 betting shops or at lest 20 parimutuel betting shops.
l The minimum paid share capital still exists and is LTL4m (approx €1.1m) and will apply to both foreign and local entities.
l It will require local and foreign operators to set up a
l Gambling operator companies and branches from other EU states providing gambling services in Lithuania are prohibited from performing any other income generating economic or commercial activities other than the provision of gambling services.
l It is not permitted to use gambling devices and equip- ment used for gambling services for any other pur- poses unrelated to gambling services such as free trial gambling, incentive games.
l Minimum age for participation in remote gambling will be 18 years.
The previous draft bills have been criticised due to the specification for a company’s physical establishment
branch of their company in the country.
l The right to run real money poker tournaments will be available to public and private limited companies.
l There will be enforcement measures against illegal operators and software and technical requirements
So at the moment Internet gaming in Lithuania remains unregulated. Online betting which was previously per- mitted has since been declared as ‘inconsistent with the Gaming Law’ by the courts in May 2013. Local gaming operators are banned from providing online services although foreign companies offering their website serv- ices are available to users. Several foreign operators have websites available in the Lithuanian language, but these exist uncontrolled and of course the state govern- ment is losing vast amounts of taxable revenue and so the situation needs to change.
Mr Danileviciute added: “Needless to say the current sit- uation requires a change and has a number of draw- backs. Foreign online gaming operators aiming to engage in legitimate business face legal uncertainty, local gam- ing organisers may not offer online gaming services without facing liability and are losing their market share to foreign unlicensed companies, consumers cannot be effectively protected and the state budget is losing sub- stantial amounts in tax revenue – to name but a few of the concerns. Realistically it will still take a while before the new Gaming Law is adopted to bring some legal cer- tainty.”
Meanwhile there were some recent amendments to the existing Gaming Law, but this primarily deals with the adaptation of gaming machines for the new Euro cur- rency at the beginning of 2015.
1 0 1
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 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124