24 Jun, 2022
"During the last period, the incomes of gaming businesses have decreased by approximately 18%, although this does not mean that people have stopped playing," Giorgi Mamulaishvili, the head of the Gaming Business Association, told Kommersant. It was a response to the June announcement where the Prime Minister said that gambling regulation would limit the game to 1,500,000 people.
According to George Mamulaishvili, 940,000 people are registered in the list of banned persons, although there are actually confirmed facts that these people moved to foreign markets, still continue to play, and because of this, the Georgian budget loses money.
"There are many confirmed facts that these people moved from the Georgian market to the foreign market, and by our rough calculations, approximately two billion GEL will leave the country per year.
A lot of illegal advertisements from foreign sites have appeared on the Georgian market, I communicate with the Revenue Service about this every day, I personally send screenshots that this advertisement and this offer are coming to us uncontrollably. In general, a very bad social background was created in the market in the sense that the imposed restrictions led to the activation of illegal sites and criminal elements, and in reality, those people who can no longer play with Georgian operators are involved in disorderly, uncontrolled games that do not pay money to the Georgian budget and are not subject to any laws.
Limiting this is quite a difficult process, and national practice has shown us that it is impossible nowadays, and even big countries have not been able to block it. The whole civilized world has moved to the fact that it is better to have gambling business within the framework and legal, Georgian gambling business has always been well developed, our neighboring countries took an example from us, however, after the new legislation came into force, everyone is surprised, they tell us that we actually broke the established system. And we turned it into an illegal system", George Mamulaishvili noted.
Mamulaishvili told "Comersantet" that many forums have been created in Georgia, where people with limited gaming can rent users and bank accounts.
"There are many forums for placing bets on the hand, the so-called "Gamazvi" practice is back, I heard several cases, forums are where clients rent themselves bank accounts and users, if bank transfers are blocked with regular cryptocurrency, they will continue to play, although blocking bank transfers is also very difficult, because these people change merchants very easily, this practice exists And the user may not have the mcc code for gambling and winning games at all, and may have the code of, let's say, a tourism or real estate company," said George Mamulaishvili.
Mamulaishvili also noted that despite the fact that Georgia has restricted sports sponsorship to gambling, foreign companies still manage to sponsor one or another team. According to him, after gambling was regulated, the outflow of foreign currency from the country and uncontrolled gambling increased.
