On 7 February 2024, the Assembly of North Macedonia adopted a sizeable number of amendments to the Law on Games of Chance and Entertainment Games (“Law”). One of the key amendments of the Law relates to all venues which host gambling activities such as betting shops, slot machine clubs, indoor raffles, and electronic games, which now must be located at least 500 meters away from any primary or secondary school.
The amendments also introduce a change and increase to the license fee for betting shops, increasing the amount of the fee from EUR 105,000 to EUR 200,000. Furthermore, organizers of games of chance are now limited to opening up to 25 payment places, and for each additional payment place, the organizers of games of chance will be obliged to pay an additional fee of EUR 10,000 per payment place. Any issued license to organizers of games of chance for slot machine clubs will now be increased from EUR 78,750 to EUR 100,000 and will only refer to three separate business premises. For each additional slot machine club, the organizer of games of chance will have to pay a fee of EUR 30,000 per slot machine club.
Organizers of electronic games of chance are now obliged to enact an internal act with procedures by which they would be able to determine the course of action for preventing the participation of people younger than 18 years of age in online gambling, including the process for determining the age of the participant when registering to use the electronic games of chance. All organizers of electronic games of chance are obliged to have an information system for supervising. The holder of a license for organizing electronic games of chance will now be obliged to pay a special charge in the amount of 6% of the total payments of made through the electronic games of chance and 20% of the difference between the total paid-in amount and the paid-out amount paid from internet hosting games of chance.
To prevent the data obfuscation of certain organizers of games of chance, organizers of games of chance will now be obliged to pay one of the following special charges monthly, depending on which amount is higher:
- for organizing games of chance in casinos, either 20% of the difference between the paid-in amount and the paid-out amount from all the machines of the organizer of games of chance in the casino; or EUR 100 per slot machine and EUR 200 per electronic roulette;
- for organizing games of chance in betting shops, either 20% of the difference between the paid-in amount and the paid-out amount from all payment places of the organizer of games of chance in the betting shops; or 1,500 EUR per payment place; and
- for organizing games of chance in slot machine clubs, either 20% of the difference between the paid-in amount and the paid-out amount from all slot machines in the slot machine clubs; or EUR 100 per slot machine and EUR 200 per electronic roulette.
Current organizers of games of chance are bound to comply with all amendments within one year of the day on which the Law enters into force. Failure to comply with the adopted amendments in the provided deadline could lead to sizeable monetary fines, as well as revocation of the organizer’s license to organize games of chance.
The information in this document does not constitute legal advice on any particular matter and is provided for general informational purposes only.
