British online casino and sports betting operator William Hill has formally quit the Czech Republic market just days before the new legislation comes into effect that would force the London-based forms to obtain a local license before they could continue offering their services to local punters. William Hill customers and affiliates in the Czech Republic began receiving emails right from the beginning of the month of December informing them that none of the William Hill products will be available in the country following recent regulatory developments.
Those developments include country’s new Gambling Act which was approved this summer and officially takes effect on January 1, 2017. The bill was approved last summer and later signed by president Milos Zeman. With this new Gambling Act, the country’s gambling laws will come in line with European Union (EU) regulations. But with this new law, it requires operators based in other European Union markets to obtain a new Czech online license if they wish to continue serving local punters.
Though Hill has hopes of obtaining a local license as in its email to Czech affiliates it expressed confidence that the parties would have the opportunity to work together in future. In the meantime players based in the Czech Republic were asked to withdraw all of the funds in their account while it was requested that marketing partners remove all marketing materials that promote the London-listed operator’s product and services.
The new regime stiff tax structure has so far kept interest in Czech online licenses to a minimum. As per the official Ministry of Finance registry as on December 6, there were less than a dozen online sports betting and card game licenses and most of them are the familiar local names such as Fortuna Entertainment, Synot Tip, and Sazka.
With the new gambling act in place, the Czech Government has plans to enforce its new gambling regime by requiring internet service providers to block the domains of any gambling site that does not hold a local license. However, this stance has been slammed by the shadowy online groups such as anonymous who have hacked the websites of various government departments and elected officials to protest what they see as online censorship.
Currently, the Czech government is keeping a tight lid on its approved online product list. In September, the Ministry of Finance decided against allowing licensees to offer live dealer casino games due to its requirement for online casino games to be governed by software’s rather than human croupiers.
