Poland legislators approve gambling law amendments

Poland‘s legislators have approved sweeping amendments to their country’s gambling laws

Last week, both of Poland’s legislative chambers gave their assent to changes to the Polish Gambling Act. Assuming Polish President Andrzej Duda puts his John Hancock on the document, the changes will take effect on April 1, 2017.

Most of the major changes have already been well publicized, including adding online casino, bingo and poker games to the existing online sports betting and lottery products. However, the new online options will be the sole responsibility of the Totalizator Sportowy state gambling monopoly, leaving international operators out in the cold. Again.

The bill offers means of combatting internationally licensed operators that continue to serve Polish punters by imposing domain- and payment-blocking of unauthorized gambling sites starting no later than July 1, 2017. While Polish-licensed betting operators will be allowed some advertising leeway, they are prohibited from advertising banking services on their websites.