The History of Betting in Poland
In the 1980s and 1990s the Polish government allowed gambling industry to grow in an unregulated way through taking a laissez-faire approach with few legislations done only in 1992.
Thousands of gambling halls sprung up in every part of the country at that time and sports betting became a common thing. This happened even though there was double deduction tax system of 10% charged to operators and 10% deducted from winnings
As of 2009, the Polish gaming industry witnessed its first major shift when the Polish Act on Gaming was passed and then followed by the 2011 Amendments. These changes were aimed primarily at the casinos operating in the country as a way to reintroduce online betting through state regulated sites.
The market for gaming in Poland is dominated by the three largest bookmakers namely, Totolek, STS and Professional.
Among these three, STS has been the company that has really stood out and attracted a huge investment from Stanleybet, a UK betting company. It therefore became the first sports betting firm to establish an online presence in Poland.
High Taxes for Polish Betting Sites
Due to the high taxes and charges that Poland imposed, after the Amendments took effect, there were few operators who applied for licenses in Poland.
The high levies similarly made the bookmakers to offer such poor odds on different events hence. Millenium, STS and Fortuna are three of the first Polish companies totolotek joined in 2012.
This resulted in the Polish sports bettors turning to various internationally-based sites which forced the government to halt payments on some platforms and for ISPs to block access to others.
Additionally, there are online companies that have voluntarily exited the Polish market, either to protect their investors’ interests or due to a desire to apply for licenses later.
Even though such actions have not been able to prevent Poles from accessing their desired gambling websites, in February 2014, Poland’s online gambling industry was approximated to be worth over €1 billion and only 9% of this belonged to Polish operators.
The European Union continually tells Poland to free their internet gambling market; however, in 2013 an amendment was made in the Gambling Act allowing transactions from all European licensed payment processors including any e-wallets such as NETeller as well as Skrill.
The Polish players could conveniently and swiftly finance their accounts on any registered betting site, as well as transfer funds between global servers and Poland in no time.
Changes Unlikely in the Near Future
Starting from 2012, there has been quite a number of legal arguments about the strict gambling regulations in Poland. However, it is doubtful that allowing full range of European payment processors will satisfy the European demand for opening up access to the online betting market.
On the other hand, given the share of the market that Poland is currently ceding to international companies, it does not seem probable that any changes will be implemented in the near future. One aspect worth noting is that though there is ambiguity on legal status of non-Polish operators, nothing exists to bar Polish nationals using overseas sites.