The Bulgarian legislation currently does not allow issuing of Internet gambling licenses. However, an amendment to the Gambling Act is submitted to the Bulgaria Parliament. The new clauses of the Gambling Act will allow Bulgarian and foreign companies to obtain Internet gambling license. Some of the new license requirements will be:
- all servers and electronic equipment has to be located physically in Bulgaria
- at least one of the servers which receives the traffic data over the Internet, has to possess domain in .bg area.
- the gambling software needs to collect records of the users, as well as to have the ability to provide data to the Gambling Commission upon request
- each game, included in the Internet gambling license, has to match the requirements for the regular gambling, as described in details in the Gambling Act.
The status of the bill can be reviewed in the website of the Bulgarian Parliament
The process of obtaining a regular Gambling license consists of providing the necessary documents and applying with the Gambling Commission. Foreigners can also apply for gambling license. You can apply as a company, registered in EU or as a Bulgarian company (subsidiary of your original company). If your company is registered neither in EU member country nor in Bulgaria, you need to match certain investment requirements before you obtain the gambling license. Depending on what games you want to develop, there are different options for gambling license: casino games, lotto games, bingo and keno, lottery, sport betting etc.
The tax on the gambling profit is flat 15%. The gambling tax excludes paying the corporate tax i.e. the gambling companies pay ONLY 15% gambling tax. Additionally you may want to get the dividend from the company profit, which will add 5% tax to the money you get from your gambling company.
22 April 2010 4:24 am
I did not know that Bulgaria is that strict when it comes to internet gambling. That makes me think that I am still luck since I live in the US. That is discounting all of the governors who are against gambling here in the country. It is nice to know that an amendment has been done. After all, I believe that there are a lot of gambling enthusiasts in Bulgaria.
3 June 2010 11:06 pm
All big gambling sites are using licenses outside EU so there is no logic for any of them to obtain Bulgarian license. They operate anyway here so why bother?
9 June 2010 7:25 pm
Gambling scams were never as recognized and as widespread as when it eventually came in touch with cyber space. Online gaming, although beneficiary for those gambling aficionados, letting them to hazard and avail of the use at home, also has some of its downsides more specifically the being of online gambling rooks.Online scams usually include the refusal of a certain game company to give you your profits.