Slot machines will be banned from bars and pubs in Slovakia in 2013 due to an amendment of the Gambling Act proposed by the Christian Democratic Movement, passed by parliament and signed by President Ivan Gaparovi on July 18.
The amendment also prohibits drinking alcohol and smoking in gambling venues; bars will be allowed in gambling rooms but they will not be able to sell alcohol. The new law also gives local authorities the ability to block casinos, gambling rooms, betting or charity lotteries in their communities.
The amendment also requires casinos and gambling rooms to ban entry to compulsive gamblers if they or their relatives request that this be done.
The amendment also requires that individual shot machine games will have a break of four seconds rather than the previous three seconds between games and establishes a new interval of 15 seconds between the paying out of winnings and the beginning of a new game.
Casinos and gambling rooms have been warning that the state and local authorities will lose €40m because of this amendment and that thousands of people in the gambling industry will lose their jobs.
Certain gambling taxes are also to increase in September. Lottery operators are currently obliged to pay 17 per cent from stakes into the state budget. This will grow to 18 per cent in September. Casino operators at the moment pay 24 per cent from bets into the state budget and another three per cent to the local community. The former is to increase to 26 per cent.
The taxes paid by slot machine operators will grow by €400 to €1,900 per year per machine as of January 1, 2012. Tax payments for video games will increase from €3,200 to €3,900 per year. These changes are expected to increase the taxes collected by the state by €900,000 in 2011 and by €16m each year in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
