Slovakian President Vetoes New Gambling Laws

This week Slovakia's president vetoed the bill that would have liberalized the country's online gambling monopoly, as he was unhappy with the legislation.

The move comes after the country's parliament approved of a bill that would have allowed for the country to begin accepting online casino gambling applications from offshore companies beginning in March, with service slated to begin in July of 2010. Operators would have had to pay a €3 million licensing fee for casino, plus an additional €3 million for sportsbetting licenses. Unfortunately, President Andrej Kiska thought the measure was flawed and struck it down with a swipe of his pen.

Kiska says that the bills didn't go far enough in protecting players, as he wanted all punters who'd previously filed for bankruptcy to be added to the national gambling exclusion database, and he also objected to the requirement of having identification cards scanned and kept online to verify player data. He said that there should be "a better way of demonstrating the eligibility to play gambling that would not pose a risk for the protection of sensitive and misleading personal data."

Kiska wants lawmakers to go back to discuss further protection measures and develop a firm plan about how tax revenues would be spent before he'd be willing to pass the bills into law.

We're following this story closely and will update as more developments arise.