BGaming boosts presence In Europe and LatAm through Bragg Gaming deal
BGaming and Bragg Gaming Group have formed a new partnership to extend the casino games studio’s presence into three key regulated markets. Operators in Spain, the Netherlands, and Peru can now access games directly from the studio via Bragg’s Hub aggregation platform. The deal sees BGaming supply localised content designed to drive engagement across each of these territories.
The Bragg Hub aggregates a variety of products from a wide range of global providers whilst ensuring that full compliance standards are met in many regulated territories. This has provided BGaming with a frictionless pathway to widen distribution in this market space, tap into new operator clients and remain on-trend with current regulated legislation.
“Expanding into regulated territories is a vital element of BGaming’s growth strategy, and working with Bragg Gaming Group has proved to be the ideal, compliant, route to achieve our goals,” stated BGaming CEO Marina Ostrovtsova. “Spain, the Netherlands and Peru represent significant markets for BGaming, and partnering with Bragg’s powerful aggregation platform ensures we deliver our highest-performing content directly to consumers while adhering to regulatory requirements.“
Hristofor Hristov, Commercial Director of Aggregation & Strategic Partnerships at Bragg Gaming Group, added: “The integration of BGaming’s titles greatly supplements our premium content offering to operators in Spain, the Netherlands, and Peru. We foresee significant commercial impact, further strengthening our commitment to providing outstanding market specific content in globally relevant, regulated territories.”
Earlier, BGaming officially teamed up with the industry giant Entain to expand its global presence.
North Macedonia’s tighter grip on its gambling market
North Macedonia abandoned its 2011 gambling regulations in July 2016 for a strict, state-run model. The parliament opted for tight central control, rather than market liberalisation, putting an end to three years of legislative delays.
The new legislation grants a total state monopoly on the operation of any kind of online gambling and lottery product with an individual, 100% state-owned company as exclusive operator. The state had already cleaned up the market in late 2014 by cancelling all private licenses for major joint-venture operations such as Mozzart and 2Win.mk.
Private companies are not allowed to own or operate any kind of gambling services and can only sell technology or content through winning public tender bids.
Stricter rules are applied also for land-based operations and promotional schemes:
- 500m range from schools: every casino or slot-room will have to be located at least 500m from primary or secondary school.
- The machines will be provided with embedded GPS and specific technical seals.
- Size limits for advertising outdoor premises: each sign of each gambling establishment will be limited to 30cm x 100cm size while flash and illuminated signs are forbidden.
- No links between gambling and fortune or celebrity participation in adverts.
- Giveaway tax: all social media games involving likes, tags, shares will require license as well as pre-payment of an 18% tax on all prize funds.
Land-based regulations seem in line with European safety standards, while the industry believes that the state-owned online monopoly will have major business implications, namely: the state-owned entities in most cases are not able to compete with foreign betting operators for better odds, bigger bonuses or diversity of games, forcing local players to opt for illegal offshore offers instead, what is resulting in smaller tax collection and lower consumer protection.
Bulgaria turns down plan for gambling tax hikes and further ad ban plans
The Bulgarian government has given the green light to keep taxes on operators low and has officially declined requests from the opposition to raise gambling tax rates and implement a betting advertisement ban in populated areas. Bulgarian Deputy Finance Minister, Lyudmila Petkova, has stated that the country is currently looking into the Gambling Act but said a fresh increase in tax could destroy the regulated market. The country has already introduced a tax of between 20 and 25 percent for online gambling already in 2024, which is imposed on top of its 10% for its corporations.
However, according to the Bulgarian Democrat party, they should increase the rate to 30 percent on gross gambling income, almost doubled in the fees for the operators, while their counterpart in, the “We continue the change” party has advocated for increased regulation on the advertising of promotions.
A second increase so soon after the increase for the 2024 calendar could force punters into the grey market where the state of illegal gambling platforms is responsible for about 40 percent of total gambling turnover in Bulgaria. Petkova explained that for several decades, tax ranges in many European nations are between 20 and 25 percent and they don’t want to promote and support illegal business activity with an oversea increase in tax for licensed providers in the future. The refusal caused a great deal of discontent from the parliamentary opposition members. The members of parliamentary opposition accused government with hypocracy: MP Venko Sabutev questioned the arguments presented by the ministers, highlighting that they have no hesitations to amendment other, far more important codes, such as the Labor Code, with transitional provisions in recent parliamentary plenarys’.
Bulgaria’s gambling industry already introduced large scale limitations through various amendments within the Bulgarian Gambling Law, back in 2024.
At the present time the advertising of the gambling industry is restricted for televisions, radios, the press, print, and online with the one exclusion of the state-owned Sports Totalisator. It should be noted that while billboard advertising of the industry is still allowed, but it must not be less than 300 meters from schools and/or universities and children and playground. Gambling activity advertising inside betting venues is also limited to 50 sqm or 20 % from facade value.
Despite having decided to keep operators safe for now, a brand new system of licenses is set to take place on 2026 and in an attempt to fight taxation fraud and also gain some additional tax revenue for the State budget, the government aims for two tiered commission system for the betting promotion businesses (affiliates) in their new framework oflicenses. While their fixed fee will continue to be BGN 6,000/year, 10% of their future earned commissions from online betting services will now need to be given to the state budget, raising state revenue to approximately BGN 100 million/year.
