Cyprus Seeks to Regulate Booming Online Poker & Online Gambling Industry

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Cyprus Seeks to Regulate Booming Online Poker & Online Gambling Industry
by PokerPages.com
Thu, Apr 5th, 2007 @ 12:00am

Online poker and online gambling has become very popular in Cyprus, amounting to GBP 28 million in bets during 2006 according to a study by credit card company JCC, which has prompted the Cyprus government to look for ways to better control and tax Internet gambling.

But Cyprus has a few obstacles to deal with before they can do so.

Cyprus is a member of the EU, and a March 2007 European Commission Ruling stressed that any company licensed elsewhere in the EU can do business in other EU states, so Cyprus cannot legally penalize EU-licensed online gambling companies.

They also recognize that it is nearly impossible technically to restrict the industry.

Nonetheless, the Cyprus Finance Ministry is in the process of preparing a bill that would offer tighter controls and better tax generation.

“The new bill aims to regulate Internet betting in a way that, among others, ensures that taxes will be paid by the betting company,” the Finance Ministry’s spokeswoman, Lenia Orphanidou told deputies last week.

The JCC statistics were presented to the House Institutions Committee last week but according to Marinos Sizopoulos, a member of political party EDEK (Movement of Social Democrats), the amount wagered on online gambling could be as high as GBP1.5 billion, as the JCC figures may not have taken into account the sums of money that are recycled during betting.