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Online betting in the hands of Taulant Balla?! Three last-minute changes to the law that raise doubts

2024-03-08 19:02:16Investigim SHKRUAR NGA ENDRIT HABILAJ
The Minister of the Interior, Taulant Balla and the Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku during the voting process for the return of online sports betting

On February 15, the Assembly voted the law to bring back sports betting, after more than five years of being declared illegal, but never blocked.

Betting was banned from January 1, 2019. But, the activity flourished massively in the black, where the big winners were the betting organizers, while the big loser was the state budget, which for six years did not collect any tax from this industry.

The legalization of online sports betting was rumored to come into effect as early as 2023. In the accompanying report of the project presented at that time by the Ministry of Finance, it was predicted that from this category alone the income in the form of taxes would be around 17 million euros .

If this figure is multiplied by five years, as long as this activity was declared illegal, then the state budget has lost at least 85 million euros in the form of taxes, money that has ended up in the hands of the organizers, which is generally taken illegally taken over by organized crime.

Procrastination of legalization

The reopening of sports betting was rumored as early as 2022. In the industry that was booming in the black, the date of June 1 of that year was rumored. The deadline was postponed, while at the end of 2022 the Government confirmed for the first time that it intended to legalize this activity again.

For this purpose, the draft and the accompanying report were drawn up by the Ministry of Finance. The draft law was also temporarily released for public consultation with interest groups. The initial proposal set strong criteria for licensing, while a good portion of the revenue from this activity was said to go to the sport.

There was an idea that sports federations should also be included in the license commissions and that decision-making should not be exclusive to the Government. The problem was that the initial proposed project, as stated by Voxnews.al sources familiar with the consultation process at that time, did not match the interests of those who practiced this activity in the dark.

This led to the procrastination of the bill and its amendment. The changes essentially did not affect the strong criteria for issuing licenses.

But what changed since the law was passed?

The law approved on February 15 has some fundamental changes regarding who will issue the license.

The law provides for the establishment of a commission of seven members at the Gambling Supervision Authority. Members are proposed by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, a representative from the Financial Intelligence Agency and another from the Information Society Agency.

The bill underwent two last-minute changes. First, it removed the ministry responsible for sports from the license commission and added the Ministry of the Interior led by Taulant Balla to this commission, and secondly, it removed the article that automatically appointed the representative of the Ministry of Finance as chairman of the commission and decided to appoint the chairman by vote secret of the majority of the members of the commission. 

The law also establishes a double standard regarding the appointment of committee members. In the third point of its article 17/1, the law states that ministers, i.e. five out of seven members of the commission can be appointed persons who do not currently exercise public functions. So they are not part of the relevant ministries, while this does not make an exception for the representatives of the Financial Intelligence Agency and the Information Society Agency.

The article seems to have been copied and has been added to the law since any of the five ministers who will nominate their representatives in this commission have their names ready and have already made the law. Sources of Voxnews.al claim that the three changes in question were instigated by the Minister of the Interior, Taulant Balla, in order to control the licenses that will be granted under this law.

The sources add that in addition to the clientelistic law, Balla has influenced and is influencing other responsible bodies in issuing VKM, regulations and instructions in implementation of this law in order to have in hand the decision-making of who will receive the license and who no.

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This article is exclusive to VoxNews, it is copyrighted according to Law No. 35/2016, "On copyright and related rights". The article can be republished by other media only by citing VoxNews and placing the source link at the end, otherwise any violator will be held responsible according to Article 178 of Law No. 35/2016.


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