Управа за игре на срећу - GAMES OF CHANCE ACT

Main assumptions:

• Terrestrial: The Grand Casino Beograd is currently one of two licensed casinos in Serbia, with 220 electronic gaming positions and 29 table games. Casino gambling is licensed on the basis of a ten-year licence term. The number of available casino licences was limited to ten for the entire country.
• Only two licences were ever awarded, both in the Belgrade area, although only one was provided for this area in the original act and tender. A licence can be renewed for a further period of ten years, upon request of the organiser and payment of a € 500,000 fee.
• The act stipulates that a corporate entity will need to be based in Serbia to be eligible for a licence, have capital stock of € 1m, have a minimum deposit/bank guarantee of € 300,000 in a Serbian bank for each casino and have to ensure a risk deposit of a minimum of € 50,000 in the cash desk of the casino.
• The Law on Games of Chance 2011 also required a three-year business plan and documents relating to the probity of officials, proof of at least five years’ experience in operating casinos, and a schedule for the licence tax payments.
• Online: Serbia’s new gambling act entered into force in December 2011 and ended the state lottery’s online monopoly, Serbian authorities have yet to issue licences.
• The legislation, which came into effect in 2012, scrapped Serbia’s government monopoly over online gaming and permitted online gambling for all licensed operators maintaining services based within the country.
• Online gaming licenses cost EUR 2,500 per month and are valid for a period of 10 years. Operators are taxed at a rate of 15% on gross gaming yield (percentage of wagers kept by the operator) with a required minimum tax payment of EUR 7,500 per month.

Serbia’s online gaming laws call on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Serbian Gaming Board to compile a blacklist of unlicensed operators while developing a central monitoring system to target unlicensed sites. In early 2012, Serbia’s Gaming Board, in an attempt to prevent access to unlicensed sites, sent a directive to the major internet service providers demanding that they block 70 blacklisted online gambling sites.