Bulgaria closes state gambling commission following corruption allegations
Government transfers regulatory authority to National Revenue Agency in landmark decision
Bulgaria’s government has officially shut the country’s State Gambling Commission (DHC) and transferred all regulatory authority to the Ministry of Finance’s National Revenue Agency.
Legislators in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia voted to terminate the powers of DHC chairman Georgi Yordanov, as well as the regulator’s six-member board of directors.
That authority has been transferred to the National Revenue Agency (NRA) under the oversight of its executive director, Galya Dimitrova, who can assign these powers to deputies within the NRA.
The decision follows the resignation of previous DHC chair Alexander Georgiev in February, after he became embroiled in the ongoing national investigation of Bulgaria’s largest gambling operator, National Lottery AD and its Bulgarian businessman owner, Vassil Bozhkov.
Georgiev was detained in February by the Bulgarian police as part of the investigation.
Bulgarian prosecutors have levelled seven charges against Bozhkov, including attempted bribery and leading an organised crime group involved in money laundering. He is currently in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) pending extradition back to Bulgaria.
The investigation into Bozhkov has had far reaching implications for the Bulgarian market, stiffening anti-gambling sentiment in the country’s parliament and indirectly leading to the exit of supplier Kambi from the market in March.
The process to transfer regulatory authority began last month with the Bulgarian National Authority Bill 054-01-51, authored by Alexander Ivanov, a member of Bulgaria’s centre-right GERB party.
All current licences issued by the DHC will now be grandfathered over to the NRA, with no need for existing operator licensees to reapply for new licences.
The legal change obliges the NRA to conclude all pending licensing proceedings within six months.
Online gambling operators who previously submitted regulatory data to the DHC must now provide that information to the NRA.
However, the DHC’s current registers of operators will continue to be maintained for a six-month period until a new register can be created by the NRA.