Equipment used to operate games of chance and the operation of games of chance

Draft Act amending Act No 253/2008, on certain measures against the legalisation of proceeds of crime and the financing of terrorism, as amended, and other related acts, acts related to the adoption of the Act on the Register of Beneficial Owners and Act No 186/2016, on gambling, as amended

The notification concerns the second part of the draft Act amending Act No 253/2008, on certain measures against the legalisation of proceeds of crime and the financing of terrorism, as amended, and other related acts, acts related to the adoption of the Act on the Register of Beneficial Owners and Act No 186/2016, on gambling, as amended.

The draft amendment to Act No 186/2016, on gambling, as amended (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Gambling Act’) does not fundamentally change the substance of the legislation introduced through the Gambling Act, which was notified on 3 August 2015 as Notification 2015/424/CZ. The changes focus on certain partial aspects of the existing provisions, while placing emphasis on the economical and efficient use of the capacities of the administrative authorities concerned and the actual manageability of the relevant administrative work. The
proposed legislation can be divided into the following areas.

The first area concerns reporting. The draft amendment transposes the existing provisions from secondary legislation, namely Implementing Decree No 10/2019 on the method for gambling operators to notify and send information and transmit data, the scope of the data to be transmitted and other technical parameters of data transmission, and the conditions for proper operation specified in the basic licence so as to increase the legal certainty of gambling operators. Implementing Decree No 10/2019 was notified on 10 September 2018 as
Notification 2018/448/CZ. At present, the Implementing Decree refers to national technical standards ČSN ETSI EN 319 122-1 V1.1.1 (Electronic Signatures and Infrastructures (ESI) – CAdES digital signatures – Part 1: Building blocks and CAdES baseline signatures) and ČSN ETSI EN 319 122-2 V1.1.1 (Electronic Signatures and Infrastructures (ESI) – CAdES digital signatures – Part 2: Extended CAdES signatures). Reference is also made to ISO 4217:2015 (Codes for the representation of currencies), ISO/IEC 21320-1:2015 (Information
technology – Document Container File – Part 1: Core), RFC 3339 (Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps), RFC 3629 (UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646), RFC 5246 (The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2), RFC 5280 (Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile), RFC 5652 (Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS)), RFC 7230 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing), RFC 7231 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content), RFC 7233 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Range Requests).

The second area concerns the register of excluded persons. The draft changes how the information that a given person has been entered into the register is provided; this is now changed to the possibility of requesting an extract from the register of excluded persons. It is also proposed that persons who fail to fulfil their maintenance obligation in relation to a dependent child be now also entered into the register of excluded persons and that the child be awarded substitute maintenance for dependent children under the Substitute Maintenance Act. 

The third area concerns the provisions on interventions in games of chance and the equipment used to operate games of chance. In contrast to the existing provisions, where a modification of the basic permit needs to be applied for in almost all cases of interventions, the provisions are made somewhat less strict. Interventions are now possible under certain conditions and, moreover, an ‘immediate intervention’ can be made in exceptional situations. In connection with this draft legislation, the obligations of authorised persons who, in the event of interventions, will issue the relevant documents, are also incorporated into this draft.

The next area focuses on the confidentiality requirements and the provision of data related to reporting and the register of excluded persons, as these provisions are absent in the current version of the Gambling Act.

The last area is the competence of supervisory authorities in the field of the operation of games of chance, where it is proposed that infractions committed by gambling operators should always be dealt with by customs authorities, thereby eliminating the dual approach to online and land-based operations.

The second part of the draft Act, which is the subject of the notification, does not contain references to European legislation. The remaining parts of the draft Act, which are not the subject of the notification, contain the following references to European legislation:
- Council Directive 2011/16/EU of 15 February 2011 on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation and repealing Directive 77/799/EEC
- Directive 2014/56/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 amending Directive 2006/43/EC on statutory audits of annual accounts and consolidated accounts (Text with EEA relevance)
- Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/843 of the European Parliament and of the Council
- Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 2015 laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical regulations and of rules on Information Society services
- Directive (EU) 2018/843 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 amending Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, and amending Directives 2009/138/EC and 2013/36/EU
- Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 of 23 July 1987 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff, as amended
- Council Regulation (EU) No 904/2010 of 7 October 2010 on administrative cooperation and combating fraud in the field of value added tax (recast), as amended.
- Council Regulation (EU) No 389/2012 of 2 May 2012 on administrative cooperation in the field of excise duties and repealing Regulation (EC) No 2073/2004, as amended
- Regulation (EU) No 537/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council on specific requirements regarding statutory audit of public-interest entities and repealing Commission Decision 2005/909/EC (Text with EEA relevance)
- Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1675 of 14 July 2016 supplementing Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council by identifying high-risk third countries with strategic deficiencies
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1108 of 7 May 2018 supplementing Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council with regulatory technical standards on the criteria for the appointment of central contact points for electronic money issuers and payment service providers and with rules on their functions
- Regulation (EU) No 2018/1672 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on controls on cash entering or leaving the Union and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1889/2005

Keywords: Gambling, Equipment used to operate games of chance, Gaming and financial data, Transmission of gaming and financial data, Scope of the gaming and financial data transmitted