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“Today, the citizens can make a deposit into their betting accounts in three ways: in cash, from the bank accounts and electronic wallets. Our draft law proposes to ban the payments in cash and via electronic wallets,” the deputy of the Civil Contract Faction, the Chair of the Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs Gevorg Papoyan informed at April 11, presenting the draft law on amending the law on Gambling Games, Internet Gambling Games and Casinos and in the co-laws authored by Tsovinar Vardanyan and him.

The purpose of the legislative amendments is to provide maximum transparency in the game sphere, to protect the interests of the socially insecure classes and to set additional obstacles for the people engaged with gambling.

The key rapporteur Gevorg Papoyan noted that a considerable part of the society, mainly with social problems, began making use of gambling games through internet sites.

According to the official statistics, games of 333 bln AMD was bought by the players in 2018, that sum was increased with more than 3.3 times reaching 1.115 bln AMD in 2019, and this number reached 1.548 bln AMD only in the first 10 months of 2020. According to some evaluations, in 2021 this number exceeded 2 trillion AMD.

In 2018-2020, the number of the players also increased almost 2.4 times reaching from 18093 to 44082. The generated sums at least five times by the organizers, making about 32% of the GDP.

As the authors of the legislative package have proposed, in case of gambling games, internet gambling games, lotteries, the transferring of the winnings, the deposit and the withdrawal of the financial means to the totalizator participants, providing the winnings are carried out only through non-cash.

According to Gevorg Papoyan, it is banned to deposit and withdraw money to the accounts of the totalizator, the organizers of gambling games and other similar subjects in cash, and with the regulation coming into force after 6 months, it will be possible to make a deposit into betting accounts exclusively through bank accounts.

Non-cash deposit is the case when the money is deposited to the bank account of the organizer of the lottery or the gambling game. It was also noted that the winning should be transferred to the account from which the money was deposited in order to play.

The Chair of the Standing Committee stated that the regulation stems from the policies implemented by the state to develop non-cash money circulation and fight gambling urges.

The RA Deputy Minister of Finance Armen Hayrapetyan noted that the position of the Government on the legislative package is positive. The executive body submitted substantive and editorial proposals, which were accepted as a result of debate and voting.

The deputies who took part in the exchange of views mainly stressed the need to fight gambling urges and emphasized the purposeful efforts of the legislative and executive authorities in this issue. It was also mentioned that the package of drafts is a preventive tool for gambling addicts.

During the debate, it was referred to the problems of creating and introducing a new taxation system. In the near future, the debates related to it will begin.

The amended version of the legislative package was put to a vote and endorsed.