Due to the changes in the Law on Gambling, the gambling sector has decreased by more than 15%. George Mamulaishvili, chairman of the board of the Georgian Gambling Association with BM.GE, announced this. According to his explanation, unlike them, the government does not limit the advertising of foreign gaming companies on the Georgian market, therefore Georgian users can go through verification, deposit and receive money on foreign websites by sending an SMS.

"Based on the changes, we can say that at this stage the sector has a decline of more than 15%. It turns out that these funds were transferred to foreign sites, because a tendency was revealed that foreign sites actively advertise their products on the Georgian market, therefore we have a heated dispute with the Revenue Service due to the fact that the Revenue Service perceives any type of our advertising, even indirect advertising, as an association with the gaming business. , although we cannot say the same that they do this to foreign sites.

We can directly say that foreign sites have no restrictions in terms of administration, you can pass verification and deposit/receive money by sending an SMS. I have to send screenshots to different structures every day, that today such a site came in, such a site, and for example this morning I saw a banner in "Instagram" promoting backgammon, when they did not have backgammon as a product. In terms of administration, the government has no power to restrict any of their actions on the territory of Georgia, while our operators cannot send SMS messages to their users and send advertising offers on Facebook, Mamulaishvili said.

According to him, there is also an attempt on the part of foreign game sites to sign sponsorship agreements with Georgian teams and thereby attract Georgian users.

"Negotiations are going on with Dynamo, Locomotive, and the government does not/cannot react to this. You might say that since sponsorship is allowed anyone can do it, but the simple logic is that when you are trying to advertise, you are spending money to get a customer. "The government will not be able to control whether a person under the age of 25 will play with them, if they are on the banned list, because they are not under its jurisdiction," Mamulaishvili said.

He also disagrees with the new requirement imposed on businesses by the Revenue Service. As Mamulaishvili says, the matter concerns their obligation to submit the history of new user registration, which is not spelled out in the legislation.

The chairman of the board of the association states that the Gambling Business does not have the right to store the personal data of the user who is not registered in their system, although he has tried.

"Now there is a new demand from the Revenue Service, which we consider to be illegal, and we will probably take legal action on it. They want the login history of all users. They want to somehow control these users, who slept and how," said Mamulaishvili.

Source: https://bm.ge/ka/article/azartuli-tamashebis-seqtori-15-ze-metit-shemcirda---asociacia/105142