Minister of Taxation, Uladzimir Poluyan.
Belarus is to enforce state-run online gambling through a governmental portal.
Historically, in contrast to the majority of the former Soviet states, Belarus has been open to gambling in general.
However, the government have announced their plans to create and run its own online gambling portal. This will provide users with direct web access to specific domestic-based online operators that have been licensed by the government.
According to the Minister of Taxation, Uladzimir Poluyan, these operators will have servers based within the legal physical limits of Belarus.
While the portal is still under discussion within the Belarus Parliament, Mr Poluyan nonetheless predicts that “this document will be passed this year,” after which “we will begin to implement its provisions in practice.”
Mr Paluyan believes that the development of the state-run portal will increase budget revenues for by approximately $6 million within three years.
He said: “We estimate that if the process is based on the legislation that has been prepared, we project an increase in budget revenues from taxes on online gambling by about Br62 billion within three years.”
Belarus is one of the only former Soviet Republics that is open to gambling. After Russia outlawed gambling in 2009, much of Russia’s gambling industry moved their business to Belarus.
In 2009, Belarus opened a casino called the Shangri-La, which was the first casino licensed by the Belarusian Ministry of Sport and Tourism. Following this, there was strong interest for Belarus to expand the gambling industry – with many believing the industry could be used to benefit the government. Indeed, among some commentators, Belarus has become known as the “post-Soviet Las Vegas.”
This development stood in stark contrast to neighbouring Russia and Ukraine, whose governments strongly dislike gambling. The same type of cultural taboo has never existed in Belarus.
To protect its own interests, online gambling has remained illegal in Belarus, to prevent online operators from outside Belarus from signing up users in Belarus, which would have given rise to an unregulated online gambling market. For the same reason, Belarus citizens were not allowed to access foreign websites online.
The gambling portal is the model for Belarus’ version of regulation, and the means by which Belarus will integrate all global web activity, within an effective computerized system of monitoring of taxable revenue activity that the government is satisfied with.
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