Georgia to increase gambling surveillance and taxes in 2024

Irakli Gharibashvili, the Prime Minister of Georgia, has signed an executive order to implement new gambling laws, penalties and protections.

Gambling businesses in Georgia have been warned to prepare for a regulatory overhaul beginning in 2024.

From 1 July 2024, the laws and amendments of the new ‘Code of Administrative Offences’ will come into force in Georgia, which oversees a strict tightening of compliance rules across all gambling segments. 

Georgia will adopt the toughest age-monitoring of gambling consumers, prohibiting all citizens under the age of 25 from participating in gambling – land-based and online.

Prohibition of gambling will be applied to all government or public sector employees and those registered with criminal offenses by Georgian courts.

Penalties for violating the Code’s rules on age restrictions are GEL 10,000 (€3,500) for a first offense and GEL 20,000 (€7,000) for subsequent offenses.

Toughening measures, age-verification rules have been applied to retail venues such as internet cafes, bars and shops, which will face fines of up to GEL 30,000 (€10,000) for allowing underage gambling.

The Georgian government has imposed tougher surveillance of gambling businesses, which will be forced to submit individual customer databases for government agencies to cross-reference citizens that have participated in gambling.

Along with tougher compliance measures, the government is raising income taxes on gambling profits from 10% to 15%, a measure confirmed in Georgia’s national budget for 2024. PM Gharibashvili has also instructed agencies to review increasing tax on customer winnings from 2% to 5%.

In previous statements, Gharibashvili cited that the Georgian government needed to raise a further GEL 400m to the national budget to deal with the pandemic of gambling impacting the country’s youth.

Since 2020, Georgian gambling has witnessed consecutive years of regulatory challenges, in which licensed operators have had to comply with a blanket ban imposed on all advertising across national media and an increase in the tax base of gambling income from 65% to 70%.