Latvian Advertising Association (LRA) has turned to residents with an announcement in which they warn about Ministry of Finance potentially trying to block the country’s internet users from accessing international resources.
“Access denied to Youtube, BBC.com, Facebook.com and many other popular internet resources?” the organisation rhetorically asks in its press-release, adding at the same time that this is something that is not possible for Latvian government institutions to accomplish. LRA reminds – despite the industry’s objections over the course of the year, the Ministry of Finance still proposes amending the Law on Gambling and Lotteries with an impossible to implement requirement to block access to international internet resources that legally show interactive gambling advertisements.
“In reality solutions should be turned in a completely different direction – the existing
laws that govern promotion of interactive gambling undermine the competitiveness of local media
and have to be changed,” advertisers suggest.
LRA stresses that the Lotteries and Gambling Monitoring Inspectorate has no and will have no way to block access to foreign internet resources. This is why, instead of creating new complications, it would make more sense to create regulations that correspond to the modern digital environment and technological advantages.
Moreover – the topic of publication of online interactive advertisements once again underlines other existing problems that put Latvia-based media in an unfavourable competition position. Suggestions from the Ministry of Finance would make the situation even worse.
“It is an unpleasant surprise – to see that the topic that was addressed in various formats and discussions for a long time to resurface on the agenda of decision-makers with various amendment variants to Section 82. The association has always officially objected to the proposed amendments, stressing that their authors have not looked into how to implement regulations in practice once they have been passed,” LRA lists the opinion of its board chairperson Baiba Liepiņa in their press-release.
She stresses: it is important to keep in mind that internet resources registered abroad are legally allowed to post interactive gambling advertisements. Latvia-based internet resources are prohibited by law from posting gambling advertisements. However, foreign internet resources have no duty to follow Latvian laws.
Latvian residents that access international internet resources will keep seeing interactive gambling advertisements regardless of their location of device used to access the internet. On top of that, it is difficult to trace global online advertisements.
“As a result, the blocking of internet website advertisements would be possible only for local media, which is unfair. And despite this the interactive gambling advertisements from foreign websites will still reach Latvian residents. Why act as though the proposed regulations will change the situation for the better?” LRA manager rhetorically asks.
Local media are still feeling the consequences from the ban on advertisements of interactive gambling. Because local media are unable to post advertisements, often advertisers use global networks, questionable media channels and piracy websites to reach users.
“It’s absurd, but it’s true – Latvian content owners are double robbed. Piracy websites live at the expense of others’ original content and even make money in the process by circumventing advertisement restrictions,” stresses Liepiņa.
In January 2023 Latvian residents were shown gambling advertisements on websites like: forbes.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, wikipedia.org, flashscore.com, gsmarena.com, dailymail.co.uk, yahoo.com, 9gag.com, mobile.de, ebay.com.
The total number of websites Latvian residents can potentially open reaches approximately 2 million.
It is also not possible to identify all the websites used to promote gambling, because advertisements end up on screens as the application is being used.
According to data from Statista.com, in Q3 2022 Google Play store had a total of 3 553 050 apps, games and other mobile apps, Apple App Store had 1 642 759, and Amazon Appstore had 483 328.
Also read: Gambling industry’s turnover reaches EUR 290.534 million in 2022