Prime Minister Edi Rama chaired Wednesday a public hearing session with representatives of sports federations and stakeholders to discuss their petition, calling on the government to consider reintroduction of formalized and supervised sports betting in the country.

The Minister of Education and Sports Evis Kushi, the Minister of Interior Bledi Cuci, and the Minister of Finance and Economy Delina Ibrahimaj attended the meeting, broadly focusing on ways to regulate illegal sports betting and formalize this activity to generate income to support development of sports, sports infrastructure as well as to support the youth and culture.

I would like to thank the president of the Soccer Federation, and the chairman of the Albanian Olympic Committee, and all representatives of the sports federations and sports stakeholders for positively responding to this invitation.

Actually, the truth is that the invitation to hold this public hearing is the outcome of the positive pressure for several months on your part now, as you have been publicly repeating the request to the government to consider the formalization of sports betting.

We are definitely talking about a potential amount of income that would be very valuable for sports activity, either for the federations of sports, or for the Albanian Football Federation, but on the other hand there is a context which must be understood and which I would comment briefly.

We decided to totally ban gambling and sports betting while taking notice of an absolutely dramatic situation with a sort of mushrooming the entire infrastructure of gambling and sports betting, taking notice of the countless casino and bingo parlours, slotting machines and betting shops all over the country, becoming a social concern especially for the youngest ones, as well as because of the dramatic family situations that often degraded to tragedies. And frankly speaking, we are convinced it was an absolutely fair and proper decision. The Minister of Education and Sports normally tends to be more on your side because the income from a formalized activity would be significant in terms of development of sports, support for the youth and culture.

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This is undoubtedly a reasonable intervention, because it will remove it from the illegal economy and collect a significant amount to the state coffers, but I would like to briefly comment on this as a reflection after the remarks by the two main individuals, let’s say, who represent all sports organizations in Albania.

First, I very much agree that if we look back – as it is the case with everything else in Albania – if we are to look back to where we were, we are today like night and day, but if we look ahead where we should be, we are today as night and day for truth’s sake. We have had absolutely a very positive cooperation with the Albanian Football Federation, we have built several stadiums, we have reached the point where we built the stadium in Tirana, we have managed to host European finals, but in fact our needs are much more than the ones we have already met.

Gyms have been built everywhere and thanks to these school gyms now available across the country, we can now develop the first national sports calendar at a municipality, district and national level with kids and youth sports teams and leagues. A total of 650 boys and girls volleyball, basketball teams have been registered to date and the final stage is underway with the Olympic Committee already building an entire material base, as all these kids will be equipped with uniforms and other materials. We will also support trainers, but the truth is that we have provided mass support to the Committee and a grant of five million euros. But if we are to provide a grant of five million euros each year we will be forced to relocate this amount from the state budget. We have done so, but reasoning makes sense, why not take this amount of money from those who circulate more than five million euros without paying any taxes.

The last reflection at this moment is that we have made a lot of efforts and I would like to give the floor to the Deputy Director General of the State Police, the Director of the Anti-Organized Crime Department until recently, as it has actually been one of the most pressing issues we have discussed intensively and about which the Director has actually invested a lot of his and the Police Department capacity to conduct a series of successful operations. However, the truth is that when this debate was launched, I have actually seen the other side only, after having consulted with certain individuals that I wouldn’t name, but they were two or three presidents or prime ministers of the countries that have totally banned gambling and any sorts of betting and they sincere said that banning online betting was actually impossible. It has been impossible to fully ban illegal online betting even in countries that have tried to do so for ideological, religious or moral reasons. Digital experts have also acknowledged that blocking online betting is impossible. It is for all these reasons that I intend to be open to this solution because, it would be regrettable if this activity remains in the hands of individuals who violate the law and where, as I said, high-profile elements of organized crime have been active and reaping the benefits of such activities.

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The intense operations clearly show that we have been 100% willing to fight and put an end to this phenomenon once and for good.

On the other hand, the very fact that this activity has not kept declining despite the law enforcement operations, the arrests and punishments, with certain courts again contributing negatively to this aspect, as it is the case in many other areas, make this today’s reflection a must.

However, I would like to emphasize and make it clear to everyone, so that nobody misunderstands all this, we will in no way allow the return of the casinos, gambling and slot machines parlours.

The only thing we are considering is online betting and nothing else, although much is being said about this topic whether this or that should be allowed. No!  We won’t allow halls of parasites and parasitism in Albania, with people gathering and spending hours long and losing the savings that parents give to their children. This is not going to happen.