CYPRUS TO EXERCISE MORE CONTROL OF INTERNET GAMBLING?

30 March 2007

Credit card study prompts government to examine stronger controls

A study by credit card company JCC last year has prompted Cyprus government officials to examine ways of better controlling Internet gambling. The figure that concerns the authorities is the GBP 28 million in bets that JCC says Cypriots gambled over the Internet in 2006.

Complications could flow from Cyprus's membership of the EU and its insistence on an open border between member states for the free flow of trade and services, but the Finance Ministry is in the process of preparing a bill that would offer tighter control....and of course 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.

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