Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office has launched a case regarding the irregularities in the work of the Games of Chance Administration and the Ministry of Finance, Dnevne Novine newspapers unofficially learns. According to a source from the institution, the case has been launched after DN released articles about the observed irregularities in the administration’s reports.
Solving problems
By initiating the case on irregularities in the administration and ministry’s work, the SSP Office has practically started resolving the total chaos that has been characteristic for the games of chance area for years.
“Documentation has been taken from the Game of Chance Administration and the Ministry of Finance. Some public officials from these institutions have already been questioned,” the source told DN. It is interesting that authorities are investigating the work of as many as four administration’s CEOs, which has happened in no institution so far.
The ministry’s representatives have repeatedly emphasised that the chaos was caused by bad laws, but they avoided implementing them. On the other hand, they did implement regulations not arising from the law, such as introducing hundreds of terminals in cafes and restaurants. The Constitutional Court has recently confirmed that terminals should not have been installed in such facilities. The court has issued a decision abolishing a part of an article of the Rulebook on spatial and technical conditions for organising betting games, ie the part of the sentence “and in restaurants and cafes” referring to organising betting on the terminals.
Illegal income
In the 2016 report, (which was released in two versions), the Games of Chance Administration virtually admitted that the profit generated from the terminals was illegal. In the new report, the terminal revenues were not listed in the table of incomes, so it is not clear where they were evidenced. Interestingly, those revenues were listed as a separate item in the 2015 administration’s report. Also, in the 2016 report, revenues from other lottery games were listed in the first table. However, it was not specified what the other lottery games referred to. The Law on Games of Chance does not stipulate generating revenues from other lottery games, so it remains unclear what the Games of Chance Administration meant by this.
The 2016 report of the Inspection Directorate adopted by the government states that the games of chance were organised in basements, restaurants, cafes and even temporary facilities, which is expressly prohibited by law. As stated in the report, due to the bad law the inspectors were not fully able to exercise control.
