Poland Looks to Rule Changes Regarding Gambling
A new bill was approved in the Polish Parliament recently. The country has been under fire as of late due to a wide range of gambling problems that have arisen. They have involved high-ranking officials in the country and it has done more than a little to embarrass legislators. The whole flub was labeled as “Blackjack-gate” and it will be a long time before officials will be forgiven for the problems that occurred. Once the scandal was dealt with, Prime Minister Tusk started an immediate push for stricter laws when it comes to gaming in the country.
The main repercussion of stricter rulings is that slot machines are going to be stationed only in approved areas. Prior to the new laws, the machines were legal to be set up in bars, service stations, malls and cafes in the country. Now, only licensed casinos will be able to have the machines and legally operate them. To implement the new changes, there may be some problems however. Namely, it may take some time to reverse the former more lax rules about slot machine gambling. It is estimated that there are more than 50,000 slot machines that will have to be removed. This could prove to be a hefty task for legislators to carry out due to the widespread nature of the locations that are having gambling machines in operations. It may take months for all the machines to be removed and that doesn’t mean that there won’t still remain an underground number of machines that are being operated. One thing other countries have learned is that gambling is something that if banned, people will find illegal ways of carrying it out. When a ban happens with gambling, there has to be some police force strictly tasked with regulating the changes and monitoring them over time. Poland can expect more underground gambling to ensue. The new rules also ban online gambling within the state. These changes may be hard to implement, but time will tell what legislators will have to do to ensure the laws are followed. It will take time and money, along with vigilant attention to make sure Poland does not fall into illegal gambling.
