Poland's new gaming laws: relaxed, but not much
Poland's new gaming laws are actually good news for operators, says Piotr Dynowski, senior associate and head of the IP, media and advertising team at law firm Bird & Bird's Warsaw office, but not as good as all that...
THE NEW POLISH Gambling laws signed late last month by President Lech KaczyÅski introduced new regulations that outlaw egaming in Poland.
It is worth noting, however, that the new law provides for what seems quite a substantial exception in the field of promotion of betting and egaming.
Even though advertising and promotion of gambling is still subject to the general ban in Poland, it is now legal to promote sponsorship by betting operators, relaxing an earlier ban on all form of promotion attached to sponsorship that made any sponsorship arrangement a charitable arrangement rather than a commercial one.
However the relaxation extends only as far as ‘passive’ promotion, meaning that while those sponsored, such as football clubs, are now able to promote sponsorship deals, the sponsors themselves are not. So, for example, while Ekstraklasa team Lech Poznan can feature sponsor Betclick’s logo on its shirts, Betclick is not allowed to use the Lech Poznan name in its marketing.
References to sponsorship are also limited only to the name or other designation used by the betting operator such as his trademark, logo or other brand, and may not include any advertising message, website address or other information on the availability of betting.
The new law also restricts sponsorship to operators who offer sports betting only, and will not allow operators who also offer other forms of gambling such as poker, bingo or casino, or operators who also run businesses offering regulated products such as alcohol or tobacco.
This means that if a company is operating a sports betting service but also has an online casino it will not be allowed to promote its sponsorship.
This exception was most probably due to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s well-known love of football and the fact that egaming operators already contribute significant sums to Poland’s 1Liga top league teams and the Polish national Team.
Nevertheless, the definition of prohibited gambling marketing in Poland remains very broad, and covers not only direct advertising of gambling and gambling businesses, but also any other products, services and entities whose name, trademarks or packaging image are even similar to those gambling businesses.
So the law has relaxed, but not by that much after all.
Thoughts? EGR welcomes pitches for blog posts of 250-350 words on topical issues in egaming. Email online editor Jon Parker for details.