The Parliament of the Slovak Republic has adopted the new gambling act prepared by the Ministry of Finance, opening the Slovak market for foreign operators, including operators with a registered office outside of Slovakia.
The new act should become effective on March 1 of 2019, except for some provisions which will be effective as of June 1 of 2019. It has created a new gambling regulator, called the Office for Regulation of Gambling who will replace the Ministry of Finance.
Foreign operators will need to have a representative in Slovakia who will need to register with the Office and communicate with the Office on behalf of the operators. A tax on online games will be set at 22% of GGR.
A tax on land-based betting will be set at 6% tax of the turnover, in some cases on GGR and for casinos it will be set at of 30% of GGR. Gambling machines located in gambling premises will have their tax set at a fixed amount.
Online betting licenses and online casino licenses will last for 10 years, although for a combined land-based and online casino license, the maximum license period is five years with an option for an additional five years. Licenses for online casinos will be issued from July 2019 with applications needing to be filed on or after 1 March 2019. And they will cost €3m for online betting and for online casinos although if operators apply for both, the combined cost will be reduced to €5m.
