Limits On The Advertising Of Gambling

The Parliament of Georgia is working on a bill that will limit the advertising of gambling, as well as the participation of owners of Georgian bank cards in online games registered on foreign websites. According to the changes, advertising of gambling on television, radio, the internet and other means of communication other than sponsorship will be prohibited.

Violation of this law will entail a fine of 10 thousand GEL (about $3.9 thousand).

The legislative changes will also affect residents of Georgia who wish to play online on foreign websites. In particular, they will not be able to credit money to the accounts of foreign sites.

"We very much hope that we will have a very serious result: the task that we face at this stage is to reduce the number of people playing. Half a million people are registered today in online or other spaces,"said Levan Gogichaishvili, a member of Georgian Dream.

In Georgia, the gambling business developed rapidly in 2017. The turnover of the gambling business amounted to almost 5.7 billion GEL (about $2.2 billion), which is almost 1.6 billion GEL more compared to the turnover of supermarkets and local stores. For comparison, last year the total turnover of restaurants and hotels amounted to about 2.4 billion GEL (about $920 million).

By Shawn Wayne