.svg)
Body
As Bulgaria plunges into a political crisis, bills have been submitted to the National Assembly that would expand the games the current state-owned lottery monopoly can offer.
Under the latest proposal, submitted on July 11, the Bulgarian Sports Totalizator would be able to accept bets on random events on self-service point-of-sale terminals. There would be a maximum of 3,000 of these devices in the country.
The bill was submitted by Lyubomir Karimanski, Iva Miteva and Andrey Mihailov from the populist “There Is Such A People” (ITN) political party, which only controls 19 of the 240 National Assembly seats.
Proponents of the bill envisage it will bolster state funds from the gambling industry, which in turn can be spent on public culture and sports projects.
The bill would need to be scrutinised by three government commissions, with the Committee on Budget and Finance taking the lead in assessing its proposals.
It is the latest in a string of proposals to reform the country’s gambling laws, with another member of ITN, Deyan Petkov, submitting a similar bill in June 2022.
Petkov’s bill would allow for one self-service terminal for every 1,725 people in the country, the equivalent to his estimated European average, according to local media reports. That would work out to about 4,000 point of sale terminals.
Bulgaria has been in a political crisis since ITN left the four-party ruling coalition in June, which ultimately led to the government being ousted. As a result, there is scepticism about any bill advancing in the National Assembly.
Current President Rumen Radev is expected to try and hand over the mandate to the second-largest parliamentary group, Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), but representatives for the party have said it will not try to form a government.
If the group returns the mandate, all parties will be asked how they envisage a way out of the “crisis”, Radev said. The President will then pick who he will select for the third and final mandate.
“This means that in the remaining days until the end of July, the parliament will be burdened with high expectations both to form a governing majority and to pass important laws. And the government with anti-crisis actions and development of the laws related to the Recovery Plan," Radev said on Tuesday (July 12).
If no government is formed before the end of July, which Radev thinks is increasingly likely, then parliament and government activity will be halted. Early elections would then follow.
Since August 2020, the National Revenue Agency has regulated the country's gambling industry, taking over from the now closed State Gambling Commission.
