Yesterday, Tuesday February 19^th, all access to almost all online gambling sites was blocked by the internet providers in Cyprus on authority of the National Betting Authority. Read the announcement here (through Google translate).

Our comprehensive list of online gambling jurisdictions & licensing authorities will help you find 100% legally licensed casinos on the web. UKGC, MGA + more. Cyprus bans online gambling. S., the parliament in Cyprus banned the use of online casinos and exchange betting to all citizens, regardless of status.

It does come as a natural effect of the Cypriot Betting Act 2012, which in the fall of 2012 also saw many betting shops and similar venues offering access to online gaming services close.

The announcement from the National Betting Authority doesn’t mention, which sites should be blocked but only mentions that the list of websites, which has already been given to providers is not exhaustive and will be constant monitoring and updating. However, according to CalvinAyre.com, a total of 270 domains has been blocked.

At this time none of the affected companies seems to have made any public statement about the issue, although Betfair, whose share prices suffered immediately with a 5% plummet after the new Cypriot gambling regulation was revealed, has previously suggested that they would react to the gambling legislation:

The company believes the legislation contains serious flaws and, in certain areas, is inconsistent with European Union law.

Betfair…will be taking all necessary steps to reduce the impact on profitability through both legal action and cost management.
Source

Betfair, which ended up filing an EC complaint over the Cyprus gambling legislation (and other companies like Tipico, William Hill etc.) was involved in land based betting shops and venues that offered in-venue access to online casino games prior to the closing of land based betting shops in the fall as the first effect of the new Cypriot gambling legislation.

Other and more local effects of the gambling legislation (besides closing local betting shops) included burning down 4 OPAP outlets and attempts to the same on three others

Not everybody is sad

However, one company that will like the development is the Greek monopoly OPAP (and probably the Greek government that are part owners), which is in the middle of a privatization process – allegedly as part of the Troika bailout to Greece.

OPAP currently has a de facto monopoly on all sports betting and lotteries in Cyprus, although two land based betting licensees was awarded to Intralot and Stanleybet recently. Furthermore OPAP is currently allowed to offer it’s services in Cyprus on a tax free basis due to an agreement between Cyprus and Greece.

It has also been indirectly suggested that the primary reason, OPAP currently has a special position on the Cypriot Gambling market is because of it’s ”special” relationship with local politicians – At least if you take the quote from a Member of Parliament, that he “couldn’t be bought by anyone” literally.

Besides favoring OPAP, rumors are that this is the first step towards allowing further land based gambling activities in the country, which should include licenses to build regular casinos. That would definitely also present a welcome splash of cash into the country’s economy, which these days must be envying the house hold economy of Donald Duck.

Future of the monopoly?

Cyprus Online Shopping

As for now, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. There’s probably not much doubt that the one-sided favoritism of OPAP is against EC regulations and it will be even more odd, when OPAP will be fully privatized and Cyprus at that time will be close to giving monopoly to a private company from another country.

One can understand the reasoning behind eg. The Danish governments protection of the monopoly of the national Danish supplier, as well as the way the Finnish government seeks to enhance the national monopoly, but allowing a foreign company to operate tax free with a monopoly status, does seem a little odd and makes you think what the reasons behind that might be.

At the moment however, you’ll need to find some way of circumvent the ISP-blocking, if you still want to gamble online from Cyprus.

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