The Lithuanian administration has declared that starting July 1st, it will prohibit all forms of wagering promotions, including all promotional rewards.
The Lithuanian legislature has adopted a new amendment that will forbid the encouragement of gambling through special occasions, trial games, promotions, price reductions, gifts, and other inducements. This prohibition will apply to both physical and online gambling markets in Lithuania. The government states the ban aims to help address the nation’s gambling issue, as well as diminish the allure of gambling and lower the amount of money individuals spend on it.
While the prohibition won’t take effect until July 1st, it is already against the law in Lithuania to encourage gambling by offering players gambling gifts or to organize gambling in unauthorized locations or outside of authorized operator websites. Under a law that came into effect last July 1st, operators must also include warnings about the risks of gambling in all their advertising.
Lithuania’s decision to prohibit all gambling promotions comes after a survey conducted by the country’s gambling regulator in November revealed strong public backing for a complete prohibition on gambling promotions.
A significant majority of the 1001 adults polled, a whopping 76%, feel that advertisements for gambling should be curtailed. A substantial portion, 52%, believe that such ads should be completely prohibited. Only a small fraction, 22%, advocate for the banning of solely lottery advertisements.
Nearly half of the participants in the survey, 47%, confessed to having encountered gambling advertisements.
In the previous year, at the behest of the Lithuanian Gambling Business Association and the National Gambling and Gaming Business Association, operators consented to halt gambling advertising during the nation’s initial nationwide lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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