Republic of Georgia considering online gambling prohibition

The Republic of Georgia is mulling a total prohibition of online gambling as part of its gambling regulatory overhaul, although not everyone in the government is convinced it’s a good idea.

Last week, Georgian media reported on a disagreement brewing between two special commissions tasked with studying the nation’s gambling laws. One of these commissions is organized by the nation’s parliamentarians and the other by bureaucrats in the Ministry of Finance.

According to the report, the parliamentarians are pushing for a total ban on online gambling, while the Finance officials are skeptical that such a ban would result in any significant reduction in online gambling activity, given the experiences of other countries who have attempted similar bans.

Deputy Finance Minister Lasha Khutsishvili said his department’s analysis of the net effect of other nations’ online gambling bans had concluded that “at present there are no effective mechanisms to actually prohibit online games. Millions of the state budget are spent on such measures, but in vain.”