“Conference, Making Gambling Business more Transparent and Improvement of Reporting

Business ombudsman of Georgia Irakli Lekvinadze, Deputy business Ombudsman Zurab Dznelashvili and Gogita Todradze, executive director for Geostat, national statistics service of Georgia have taken part in the conference organized by Gambling Business Association – Transparency of Gambling Business and Improvement of Reporting.

Representatives of Government of Georgia and the field actor companies have also participated in the conference.

The conference participants discussed new regulations in the gambling business. The business ombudsman introduced the initiatives developed by the Finance Ministry workgroup.

 “At tBusiness ombudsman of Georgia Irakli Lekvinadze, Deputy business Ombudsman Zurab Dznelashvili and Gogita Todradze, executive director for Geostat, national statistics service of Georgia have taken part in the conference organized by Gambling Business Association – Transparency of Gambling Business and Improvement of Reporting.he conference, we introduced issues discussed in the workgroup to members of the gambling business association and the industry companies and exchanged considerations. Our office represents interest of the industry participants in the workgroup. It is very important for us to update the industry representatives about the announced regulations. It is very important that the field actors also take part in the working process”, Irakli Lekvinadze said.

The Business Ombudsman also introduced remarks that the Ombudsman’s Office has sent to due offices in relation to regulations.

„There are several issues, where we have a position of principle, including prohibition of citizens under 25 years old to play gambling games. I think this barrier without substantiation may push the category under 25 years old into shadow sector. It is also important that a full prohibition of advertising in gambling business will refer to both gambling business and advertising sector and this regulation will reduce revenues of advertising companies. Moreover, we believe that before introduction of new regulations, regulatory impact analysis  (RIA) should be carried out to  outline expected effect of changes on economy and business”, Irakli Lekvinadze said.