While the economy of Greece is quite struggling due to the politicians greed for power, the Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is speaking about a new gambling legislation and its benefit impact for the country’s economy.
Based on the Finance Minister’s calculation, Greece could earn around €500 million Euros per year and that would really bailout the Greek economy and would meet the required set of rules that are set by the European Union.
The €500 million Euros plan was sent in a letter to EuroGroup by Mr. Yanis, in which he promised to grant the new gambling law which enables licensing of online gambling operators on the territory of Greece and earn them an extra revenue.
But the Greeks are sceptical about this new plan, the country’s conservative daily Ekathimerini wrote the following: “One wonders how he came to that amount.”, stating that €500 million in yearly revenues is a simply a fantasy target.
Ekathimerini’s award-winning reporter and TV presenter Tasos Telloglou wrote the following: “State revenues from online gambling in the European Union barely reach 10 percent of gaming companies’ revenues, which in 2015 are expected to come to 13 billion euros.”.
Telloglou also explains, while citing a report from the European Commission, that the current state of the gambling market in Greece allows the Greek government to impose taxes on “€160-€240 million in gross revenues,” which obviously would not generate revenues for anywhere near the €500 million mentioned by Varoufakis.
If we know Mr. Varoufakis, he will definitely demonstrate his plan in full details and the outcome will one of amazing proportions, however, we aren’t that optimistic about the Finance Minister’s proposal.
This thought about finally regulating the market came to his mind while being busy with trying to find revenues for the country. He is also trying to convince Germany to ease up on some of Europe’s most rigorous economic policies. He even has been criticised for asking Germany “to pay war reparations to Greece” before he was filmed literally ‘showing his middle finger’ to Europe’s first economy.
