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Number of teenagers gambling online rises in Czech Republic

Xinhua, November 22, 2016 Adjust font size:

The number of teenagers gambling online has been rising in the Czech Republic, said Czech national anti-drug coordinator Jindrich Voboril on Monday.

Cards or dice, followed by fixed-odds betting and lotteries are the games most often played online by children, said Voboril, adding regulation and prevention of gambling must be strengthened.

Voboril said this is a new phenomenon even as children under 16 started gambling, and around 7 percent of them have experience with online gambling and losing money. Amid youth aged 18-19 years, the figure stands at 30 percent.

In January 2017, a new law on gambling will take effect in the country, regulating the operation of online gambling. Experts will assess the law in one year and possibly propose further measures.

Deputy Finance Minister Ondrej Zavodsky said while some card games are allowed online, various online casinos and technical games as well as about a half of odds-betting offers of foreign operators are illegal. Their operation can be legalized under certain conditions as of January.

The new law will enable the setting of the financial limit for a loss in gambling, for instance. But the law has been criticized as being too soft by some observers. Endit