Bulgaria’s Gambling Commission has blacklisted 22 on-line betting web-sites for failing to obtain Bulgarian gambling licences.

Below the country’s Gambling Act, last amended in 2012, all organizations that provide any games of opportunity in Bulgaria need to hold a Bulgarian gambling licence and pay tax – in Bulgaria, gambling operators are taxed 15 per cent on their turnover.

The blacklist involves some of the most common on line bookmakers – Bet365, Sportingbet, Ladbrokes, 888, Bet-at-Home, BetFred and BetFair – but will not cover any other kinds of on the web gambling, such as on the internet poker web-sites.

The commission said, in line with reports in Bulgarian media, that the blacklist could be constantly updated.

Simultaneously, the Gambling Commission is yet to draft the regulations outlining the licence application approach for online betting web sites, however it has received two such applications, like one particular by a web page inside the blacklist, mass circulation each day Trud reported.

At the moment, three nearby operators hold a licence to supply betting on sporting events – state-owned Bulgarian Sport Totalisator along with the private Eurofootball and Eurobet, as outlined by a report in regional newspaper Kapital Each day. The latter two are linked to controversial Bulgarian businessman Vassil Bozhkov, the report mentioned.

Although the choice is often appealed inside a 14-day period of your announcement, doing so doesn’t suspend the execution from the Gambling Commission’s choice, the commission mentioned.

The blacklisted internet sites have three days to cut access to Bulgarian consumers, the Gambling Commission mentioned, based on the reports in Bulgarian media. If they fail to perform so, the Commission can ask Sofia District Court to order the country’s online service providers to block access to the web-sites.

However, it’s not clear what could be the legal repercussions, if any, on Bulgarian buyers applying proxy servers to access the betting websites.