Report SPORTS BETTING - PART 3
sector in both Estonia and Latvia with the introduction of OlyBet. OEG was one of the first online licensed operators in Latvia and today all the casinos and slot halls in Estonia operated by Olympic have the OlyBet system in place.
OlyBet offers a pre-match and live in-play sports betting service and customers can watch a wide variety of competitions and matches and can either place a bet or just enjoy the sports on the screen.
OlyBet is an open platform and has been created and delivered in partnership with e-gaming software developer Iforium. It offers casino products from Playtech and Microgaming. Revenue from the betting sector in 2014 amounted to €59.4m
ONLINE Online gambling has been legal since 2010 and was
in part introduced to help Estonia’s flailing economy during the global recession.
The government gave Estonian gamblers the chance to play online but only at licensed sites and only by sites operated by local companies. In 2011 they opened the market to offshore operators with the condition that licences are obtained from the Estonian authority. Any other illegal sites were blocked.
Operators must obtain two types of licences – the Activity licence which certifies the applicant who wants to operate an online business and the Operating Licence/Permit which is obtained before organising a specific type of gambling such as lotteries, totalisators, slots or tables. Applications are made to the Tax and Customs Board and licences are issued for five years.
The rule that online gambling sites be hosted by an Estonian based server came under question at the
LICENSED OPERATORS IN ESTONIA: OPERATOR
BRAND AS Eesti Loto
IMG Kasiinod AS MC Kasiinod AS AS Novolotto
Olympic Casino Eesti AS Osauhing Tonybet OU Best4U PAFER AS
REEL Estonia Ltd Spordiennustus Totalisaator AS Triogames OU
KingsWin Online OU Unibet (Estonia) ltd Optiwin OU
Dreambox Games Eesti Loto
Casino Grandprix Casino Monte Cristo Fennikss/Admiral Olympic Casino Tonybet
CityCasino Paf
Pokerstar Paf
Totalisator Triobet
Kingswin Unibet Optiwin Chanz
European Union in terms of possible violations and prohibiting free competition. Today the law states that if the server is not located in Estonia “the organiser of remote gambling shall, before starting to use the server for the organisation of remote gambling, provide the Tax and Customs Board with evidence that the gambling supervisory authority, and the authority dealing with prevention of money laundering in the country of location of the server, have a legal basis and possibilities to cooperate with the Tax and Customs Board and Financial Intelligence Unit.”
There are to date over 1,130 blocked illegal online gaming domain names listed on the Estonia Tax and Customs Board. Online gaming revenue has enabled the country to recover from economic difficulties. Before this the state run sportsbook Spordiennustus offered the first online gambling facilities back in 2004.
The Estonian Olympic Committee, Spordiennustus, originally had a licence to operate fixed odd sports betting in Estonia and is a joint venture between the Olympic committee and PAFER, Alands. The company set up
Fortuuna.ee which offered sports betting and lottery games and bingo.
Today most players prefer the foreign run casino sites. There are currently 10 online gaming licences issued of which two are foreign companies. The operators include: Pafer As, Spordiennustus (Paf), Triogames, Kingswin Online, Unibet, Optiwin, Tonybet and Dreambox Games plus two casino operators with online licences Grand Prix and Olympic.
Tonybet offers all sorts of online games from sports betting, live games, poker, live casino whilst Triobet Sportsbook offers betting on global and local events whilst TrioBet’s Poker room is said to be the biggest
ESTONIA SPORTS BETTING NO. OF BETTING SHOPS: 23 NON REMOTE OPERATORS: 2 GGR: €59.4M HORSE TRACKS: 1 ONLINE MARKET: 2010 REMOTE BETTING GGR: ESTIMATED TO BE €50M (€9.8M IS THE TURNOVER FOR 3 OPERATORS – TRIOBET, OPTIWIN AND PAF) REMOTE LICENCES: 10 LICENSING: MAKSU-JA TOLLIAMET
in the Baltics and part of Microgaming’s poker platform.
The first land based operator to obtain a poker room licence was Olympic Entertainment Group who partnered with Playtech to offer more than 150 casino games and online poker. Later PokerStars launched a sponsored live tournament in Estonia and was also one of the first sites to obtain an activity licence in the country. Meanwhile taxes for the online sector are five percent for betting and remote gambling operators on their net profit.
The gambling association in Estonia – EGOA – has nine members which include the six land based casino/slot hall operators plus three of the nine online operators - Triobet, Optiwin and PAF.
The turnover for the casino/slot hall sector last year was €53m for land based operators which was divided between €46.5 for slots and €6.5m for table gaming. Online turnover was €9.8m for the three EGOA members.
CASINOS 14
4
12 20
5 7
Yes Yes
Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes Yes yes
Yes
yes yes Yes
Yes yes
9 1
yes Yes
Yes
ONLINE yes
SHIP GAMING
TOTO
LOTTERY yes
SKILL GAMES
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