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According to the court’s statement, the judges rejected challenges from gaming hall operators and said the city’s public decision was legally sound.
The ruling preserved a revenue measure the city says was designed to bring in up to €1 million according to the court’s own summary.
Andreas Braun, owner of four arcades in Wiesbaden, filed an objection and constitutional complaint against the tax rate in April last year according to local reporting. He argued that the tax rise had provided a ‘strangling’ effect to business and that it consumed operator profits.
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A CEO of a prominent operator in the DRC last year told iGB the tax system largely operates on a declaration basis of how much operators report to the government.
“Operators do pay, yes, but they pay whatever suits them,” they said. “In other words, we effectively pay what benefits us. All the while, the state has no means of monitoring its regulatory policies.”
In response to these issues, earlier this year the DRC Ministry of Finance outlined plans for a new gambling monitoring platform to enhance its supervision of the sector.
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Much of the onus for the increasing black market is put on increasingly restrictive policies enforced by regulators across the licensed sector.
Taking a deeper look at these restrictive driving black market activity, up to 46% of the markets covered in the report enforced “significant advertising restrictions” on the regulated market, including in Belgium, Bulgaria, Coratia, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Spain.
Additionally the report cited taxing consumers (in 29% of the 28 markets covered), and banned products (14%), were also propelling growth in illegal gambling. A lack of choice, due to monopolies in place in five markets has also driven the rise.