Estonia Enters the Online Casino Industry

After much talk in 2009, Estonia has finally entered the online casino industry and legalized online casino gambling in 2010. Estonia has beat many other countries in the European Union to the punch, opening up a number of homegrown casinos and blocking foreign online casino operators in an attempt to regulate and nationalize the industry.

Now that the country has legalized and regulated online casino gaming all operators must run their sites from servers located within Estonia. That means that all foreign operators will be blocked, unless they can set up shop within the small country. Additionally, all online casinos within Estonia will be required to pay a 5% tax on all revenue in addition to a licensing fee. However, many of these restrictions will be lifted after one year, according to the Estonia Free Press.

What is the reason that Estonia is keeping these restrictions for the first year? The main reason is that they want to give themselves time to break into the industry. They need a way to get foreign operators out for long enough to make their footprint. Once they are settled and Estonian gamblers feel comfortable with them they can start letting foreign casino operators back in.

The main reason that Estonia is jumping on the online casino bandwagon is to increase government revenue. More and more countries are working to legalize and regulate online gambling as they are discovering that it is a great way to increase revenue via the taxes that are collected from online gamblers. This money can be used to fund all sorts of projects and to help stimulate the economy, which is especially important in today’s turbulent economic times.

Estonia Enters the Online Casino Industry

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