Prime Minister Edi Rama’s speech at plenary session of the Assembly of Albania:
With the Parliament Speaker’s and your consent, I will deviate from the agenda of this session to devote few minutes to the today’s hot issue, gambling and sports betting.
I am very sorry that a number of MPs, and the members of the Parliamentary Committee on Economy and Finance in particular, have become target of an attack of vulgar messages orchestrated from the Prison “313”. On the other hand, I am pretty confident that this parliamentary group will award primarily parents, mothers, women and girls of this country, as well those in an unhealthy relation with the luck, a long awaited gift on the occasion of the New Year’s eve, that is the closure of electronic casinos, sports betting on every football match and every racing game with any four-legged creatures of the world’s fauna and the online betting. With the understanding that as for the online betting, which, as experiences in other countries show, is a very complex aspect, we will reach a well-examined conclusion and on the basis of which we will engage in a later discussion.
A series of proposals have been made, including a state monopoly idea on gambling and sports betting, but today I am personally opposed to. However, all these proposals are open for discussion.
On 1st January of next year, here in the Parliament we will sanction that no betting shops and electronic casinos will be allowed in residential areas.
There is also another aspect worth emphasizing, since speculations have been made over the issue of electronic casinos also regarding their relocation to the outskirts, there will be no such relocations. The casinos will limit their operation to 5-star hotels or resorts in areas defined as tourist areas by government decision and all relevant territorial planning authorities. No concession will be made in any other space!
On the other hand, it is regrettable but true that the ones absent from today’s session have sided with those who have launched an online fight and are intimidating a part of this majority’s MPs via messages. The long-time Democratic Party leader himself has decided to side with the gambling by making his digital wall poster website available to the slanderers and to this entire defamation campaign launched by the organized crime that finances this activity on which the Tirana University has conducted a research back in 2016 when debate on this issue had reached its peak.
The findings of the survey are chilling, just like the conclusions of the entire analysis carried out by our working team over months. We launched work to put an end to this battle since we took office. This battle has been a tough one and once failed when we didn’t succeed in putting an end to the electronic casinos, but managed to postpone the deadline to ultimately ban them at the end of this year.
However, “failing at something is not necessarily a bad thing,” – my dear and wonderful grandmother used to say. Therefore, now we will ban the casinos and the sports betting too. Any kind of gambling will be banned. Those who have employed all scum hoping we will backtrack on our commitment by delivering a libel like the alleged online monopoly should feel the shame of representing this category. But we know more than that about this offensive. We know more about the ties of those who wander about and appear at various TV channels to hypocritically and deviously reject this move by focusing on an alleged online monopoly but in fact being directly related to the interests culminating in the high security prison cells in Tirana.
Around 68% of active gamblers have started activity between ages 10 to 15. This is the age when these players start growing. That is why France has forbidden any street betting parlour. The opening of betting shop in France carries a three-year minimum sentence.
This is one of the reasons why the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the national governments are allowed to restrict gambling for the public interest and the consumer’s protection, an unprecedented ruling by the European Court regarding the market, namely the right to limit and even ban gambling market to protect public interest and defend national security when the organized crime takes over this activity.
Only 18% of the gambling and casino players who fall prey to this addiction start this activity between ages 16 to 20. Around 73 percent of this disease victims group acknowledge they have experienced distress and mental health problems.
As a result of this stress and mental problems, 1 in 4 players admit they have at least once contemplated to commit suicide. This is a case study conducted by the University of Tirana and its findings, fortunately and unfortunately, coincide with the data available in other countries and other sociological, psychological and scientific studies conducted in other countries, where drastic actions have followed to put an end to this deadly disease.
The impact of gambling problems on families include serious conflicts that end up with divorce after domestic violence becomes severe. Around 43% of gamblers acknowledge that after becoming addicted to gambling and betting their relation with the family is totally distorted and they start stealing money from their family always pledging this is the last time, but doing the same thing a day later.
The decision is not unique for Albania and it doesn’t come out of the clear blue sky for Albania only. France has set up a state agency for the online betting, exerting an absolute control on online betting which we currently lack. To this end, we will start with the study and construction of a whole system just in case that this very Parliament later decides to give the green light to the online gambling, also taking into consideration something else that the slanderers have spread the word that from now on everyone can bet online and that will be done from every coffee shop, bar or any other kind of shop. It doesn’t work that way. Online games are played on the phone, but you need a bank identity card for that and no transactions can be made from crime proceeds, money out of the banking system, or evasion.
However, this is not the matter of the moment, since this Parliament and I am here to ask the Parliament Group chairman and the Assembly Speaker to speed up the procedure in order to end as soon as possible this film starring all kinds of visible and invisible actors and as soon as possible send to every Albanian family the message that this film is over and at the same time provide any betting shop owner to adapt to a new market as soon as possible. A market with an estimated annual turnover of around 700 million euros that will return to the coffers of each household and will be used for the healthy household consumption.
In addition to that, this industry has sent prices to record high, a phenomenon that is not new as it was widespread in Great Britain when gambling parlours were legitimized back in 1961, when around 100 such parlours were opened every day.
This industry has clearly blocked the entire real estate market space available to start hundreds of other businesses because they are all powerful because they possess huge amounts of black money because – I repeat – they are supported by organized crime, rely on threats, extortion and racketeering.
On the other hand, a number of jobs will be lost and this is actually a problem. This won’t be easy for the employees, but yet transforming these spaces into healthy businesses is completely possible.
A decision to impose a 5% profit tax rate on businesses with an annual turnover of 140 million lek will be adopted by this Parliament ahead of the next year will provide all those doing small business a great opportunity that is offered in no other country.
The profit tax rate of only 5% is a strong incentive for everyone seeking to open a business in order to be self-employed and employ other people. Around 93 percent of those doing business in Albania belong to the group with the annual turnover of 140 million lek. 93% of those doing business in Albania today will pay a tax of only 5% and nothing else, except the social insurance contribution, which means that this move is a golden opportunity for all those owning a betting shop today. This is an opportunity offered to all of those who have invested in betting shops in order for them not to join the group of those taking part in the online libel campaign, but instead think about ways to transform their shop into a healthy and lucrative business activity.
“One cannot live on 240 000 lek dude.” I know it man, but the 240 000 lek salary is the lowest for the individuals who lack everything, but the desire to work. Meanwhile, many take up a job with a 240 000 lek monthly salary, which keeps then raising to 300 000, 400 000 and 600 000 lek and it is not a coincidence that more than 16 000 people will benefit from another tax cut included in the new fiscal package monthly salaries ranging from 1.2 to 1.5 million lek. As many as 16 000 individuals hold such high-pay jobs in the private sector mostly.
So, Blendi Klosi was not wrong when stated “there are jobs, but no professionals.” To put it another way, every large business operating in Albania today, which account for seven percent of the business in the country, have jobs on offer. But yet they need professionals and not individuals who place bets.
This is another challenge but I won’t go on any longer.
Thank you for allowing me to deviate from this session’s agenda and talk about an issue that is high on the agenda of every family. Once again, I beg that this government project is forwarded to the Parliament as soon as possible and be adopted by the vote of the only political party that thinks about citizens. The others claim they think about people, but indeed they think about their own selves.
Thank you!
