"Zhoghovurd" newspaper writes.
"The National Assembly adopted in the first reading the package of additions and amendments to the law "On Regulation of Gambling Activities" presented by Hayk Sargsyan. The project, in fact, could give a green light to the wider spread of the black market in the gaming industry.
Today it is already obvious that unlicensed operators are increasing their presence and share in Armenia day by day. This means that the number of citizens who place bets on unsupervised platforms is increasing. These sites are outside of government control, so they lack the accountability, transparency and player protection mechanisms that are required of licensed operators. In other words, unlicensed platforms can operate almost without any restrictions, up to and including failure to pay out winnings. And the citizen, being in such a situation, is practically deprived of effective mechanisms of legal protection, because the state bodies often simply do not have the opportunity to pursue these operators. In fact, a number of provisions of legislative changes can become an additional incentive to push citizens from the licensed field to the black market.
The draft proposes to prohibit participation in games organized within the framework of gaming activities by those citizens who benefit from any subsidy program financed or co-financed by the state budget. Although this wording sounds nice, in reality the range of restricted persons may be too wide. It can refer not only to the users of social assistance programs, but also to the beneficiaries of agricultural, business or other stimulating programs.
Meanwhile, most of these programs have nothing to do with social insecurity and have the goal of economic development or encouragement. In other words, it is not only the socially disadvantaged class. In addition, allowance, pension, social assistance and, for example, the income tax refund program do not serve the same purpose. The first ones are aimed at ensuring the social and vital needs of citizens, and the income tax refund program has a clear economic component, stimulating the development of construction and the renewal of the housing stock in Armenia.
Another provision of the project proposes to ban participation in the games for those citizens who have reached the retirement age and whose only source of income is the designated pension. However, the mere fact of receiving a pension does not mean that a person is socially insecure. In addition, the draft does not specify by what mechanism and by which body it should be determined whether the given person has other income or not. It should also be taken into account that many pensioners have savings that they can dispose of at their own discretion, including betting. This is an uncontrolled domain. This restriction can backfire. not having the opportunity to bet in licensed organizations, these individuals may move to unlicensed, i.e., black market platforms.
The most problematic is the provision of the draft, by which the permissible amount of citizens' participation in the games is set at 20 percent of the declared annual income for each year. The government also has objections to this approach. According to the government's position, it is necessary to refrain from setting the permissible amount of participation in the games as a percentage of the declared annual income, because its practical application is currently also problematic and premature. A limit based on annual income may not reflect a person's true financial capabilities.
There may be cases when a person has no declared income in a given year, but has significant savings. The risk is obvious. under the existing declaration mechanism, the declared incomes of hundreds of thousands of citizens may be zero, for example, in the case of those engaged in agriculture, unemployed or persons with irregular income. As a result, their participation in the games may be limited, regardless of their actual financial situation.This situation, in turn, may promote the transfer of the same citizens from the licensed field to unsupervised, unlicensed operators.
It is noteworthy that the SRC also spoke about and opposed the risks of limiting the annual declared income to 20 percent. It turns out that a project has been adopted that can contribute to the expansion of the black market and the strengthening of the positions of unlicensed operators. Responsible gambling is an important component of the gambling sector and is widely used in various countries around the world. However, under its name, a legislative project is currently being promoted in Armenia, which may lead not to increasing the control of the sector, but, on the contrary, to the expansion of the uncontrolled gaming market.
Meanwhile, it is obvious that it is impossible to talk about the fight against gambling or responsible gaming and at the same time ignore the problem of the black market. Let's remember that the volume of bets has increased shamefully over the last 8 years, from 4.3 billion to about 8 trillion.
Details in today's issue of the newspaper.
