Online Casinos in Slovakia Nearly Bankrupt State Lottery

Slovakia’s state-owned lottery company, Tipos, was finally granted credit protection against creditors the past week.

The Bratislava I District court granted protection via restructuring for the barely solvent national lottery, created under Slovakian gambling laws, which has been hemorrhaging over the past few years.

Tipos, has been steadily losing business to foreign based online casino in Slovakia which offer similar wagering options but in much greater variety in Slovak language.

Tipos, controlled by Soviet era bureaucrats, is unbearably slow to implement innovative gambling products offered by free market oriented foreign internet gambling companies.

Besides the competition from foreign based companies specializing internet betting in Slovakia, Tipos is facing a €66 million judgment for lottery trademark infringement awarded by Slovakian Supreme Court.

In January of 2000, Športka, a Czech Republic lottery company sued Tipos for ‘unauthorized use of lottery trademarks as well as technical know-how.’ The two countries have previously been a single republic of Czechoslovakia.

Lemikon Limited, a Cyprian company connected to the Czech billionaire Radovan Vitek, bought Športka’s legal claim in 2008 and has been slowly boxing the the Slovakian lottery in, which finally resulted in Tipos seeking official creditor protection.

That same year Tipos paid roughly €16 million to Lemikon’s account and owes €50 million more.

The court has appointed an expert restructuring administrator who will report his findings after a 30-day review period.