William Hill no longer operates in the Czech Republic

British online casino and sportsbetting operator William Hill exits Czech Republic only days before new legislation comes into force.

The new regulation would force the London-based firm to get a local license before it would be able to continue offering its services to local punters, that is why William Hill exits Czech Republic.

According to the new gambling law of the Czech Republic, which was approved last summer, any operator of online games, wanting to offer their services to local players need to first obtain a license from the Czech authorities. Customers and affiliates William Hill have received e-mails informing them of the decision of the brand earlier this month.

Nevertheless, William Hill simultaneously expressed confidence that it would get the chance to work with them in the future. Players who live in the Czech Republic were asked to withdraw all of the funds in their accounts while it was requested that marketing partners remove all marketing materials that promote the London-listed operator’s products and services.

Online gambling in the Czech Republic is regulated by tax structure with the nation’s Finance Ministry recently reporting that less than twelve sportsbetting and “card game” operators have native licenses with the majority of these been local firms such as Fortuna Entertainment Group, Sazka and Synot Group.

The Czech Republic intends to demand that local Internet service providers block all unlicensed gambling websites. This provision received considerable condemnation. The situation for online gambling operators became even worse in September when the Finance Ministry stated it is to ban licensed firms from offering live-dealer products to local players and that instead it would rule that all games have now to be monitored by random number generator technology.