“Tis year Totolotek brand has re-branded its marketing communication in all channels but also changed the online and retail platform to real omni channel platform to align to company strategy to offer the best product and promotion with the same customer experience in sports betting across all sales channels.” Mariusz Rzeczkowski, Director of Marketing, Totolotek
Te deal via Gauselmann’s subsidiary Merkur Sportwetten will enable Merkur to roll out its brand in the country and as such means Poland is Merkur’s fifth active market for betting expansion.
Te name Totolotek remains with a redesign logo featuring the laughing Merkur sun whilst the shops have been renovated with Gauselmann betting terminals and systems.
Mariusz Rzeczkowski, Totolotek Director of Marketing said: “Tis year Totolotek brand has re-branded its marketing communication in all channels but also changed the online and retail platform to real omni channel platform to align to company strategy to offer the best product and promotion with the same customer experience in sports betting across all sales channels.
“Store fronts for all shops will be re-branded by the end of October this year and we plan to continue to renovate shops in 2020. We are constantly improving our product and introducing new features and promotions to offer the best Omni Channel customer journey.
Online betting - Te changes in 2017 saw players lose access to many offshore bookmaker and casino online gambling sites and the monopoly left many feeling stifled with fewer options. Te only form of online gambling permitted for private entities is betting and promotional lotteries.
Te blacklist was introduced in April 2017 followed by blocking measures from July 2017.
Tis means unlicensed gambling websites can be blocked from Poland whilst a blacklist is kept by the Ministry of Finance (
hazard.mf.gov.pl) with ISP blocking and payment blocking services in place. Tere are fines of up to PLN250,000 for any ISP and PSP failing to comply.
Te gambling blacklist was upheld by a local court as permissible and today there are around 8,000 names on the list (October 2019 data) including companies such as Betsson, PartyPoker and Unibet.
An online betting licence fee is PLN433,000 (€100,000) for one website plus a bank guarantee of PLN480,000 (€115,000). A licence last for six years (betting) and two years (promotional lotteries).
All servers and data related to online gambling must be stored and located in the EU/EEA whilst only websites using .pl domain are permitted.
Offshore company Betclic launched its site in June which was previously on the blacklist. But since then it embarked on a huge branding campaign which saw it sponsor the national men’s volleyball team last year and later a football sponsorship with Lechia Gdansk.
It was active in Poland prior to the 2017 amendments and like many other foreign bookmakers withdrew from the market. But it applied last year and has since received a licence as from September 2018. It has no plans yet to operate landbased offices.
Other companies got creative in a bid to evade the digital censors and have pushed the boundaries a little. Asia’s SBOBet is now on the blacklist with domains such as
cake000.com and
beer77.com which then simply redirect players to their gambling sites.
Although the idea of a restricted online market was to kick out illegal activity it seemed this was initially harder than imagined. A study by the Polish Supreme Audit Office (NIK) is still pushing for more regulations and oversight.
In 2017 changes to the gaming act saw a 12 per cent turnover tax imposed on online gambling which saw tax revenue increase - but not as high as hoped.
One problem is the monopoly but also a withdrawal of big names like William Hill and Bet365. NIK would like to see a bigger clean up to eliminate illegal operators plus more stringent controls over telecommunications providers and payment providers.
Mariusz Rzeczkowski, Director of Marketing at Totolotek said: “Te Polish sports betting market is growing by the number of operators in the market but despite this almost half of the online market is still offshore mainly due to high taxation (currently at 12 per cent tax on turnover), high cost of operations but also legal limitation in advertising and promotion. It is difficult to forecast if and when tax changes may occur.”
THE CASINO SECTOR Te first casinos opened in Poland in 1989 by
Casinos Poland. Te law for casinos was introduced in 1992 and the market began to grow significantly.
Tere are currently 51 casinos (end 2018) operating in Poland run by nine companies although with temporary breaks and closures whilst licences are renewed, the actual number open at any one time is often lower.
Casino licences are limited to 52 in total and the final licence is for the region of Lesser Poland although there is no tender for this licence at present.
Casinos can operate slots, cylindrical games and
NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE / MARKET DATA P203
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