In 2018, Edi Rama declared war on sports betting. According to him, it had become a social scourge that destroyed families, impoverished citizens and fueled gambling addiction. With a strong public campaign, the government decided to close betting shops and ban all activities, including online ones, as of January 1, 2019. Eight years later, betting, which once had to be eliminated to save Albanian families, has become a source of income for which the government has reserved a place in the 2027 budget.
A total of 2 billion lek, or about 20 million euros, is expected to be collected from licensing companies that will organize online sports betting. The figure is included in the revenue projections for the upcoming budget, which totals 907.9 billion lek.
The irony is that the government had also foreseen these 2 billion lek for 2026, but failed to collect anything from this item, as the procedures for granting licenses were not opened. Now the same amount has been moved to the following year's budget, with the warning that it may not be realized again if the activity does not start.
The story of this change of attitude begins in 2018, when Rama presented the closure of betting as a battle against an industry that was economically and socially destroying Albanian families. Thousands of betting points closed their doors and the activity was banned by law. But betting did not disappear. They continued to be played illegally, mainly via the internet, while the police continued to report raids on the organizers of this activity.
In 2023, Rama himself admitted that the ban had failed to eliminate the phenomenon and supported the return of online sports betting, this time under state control. The argument changed: instead of money circulating in the illegal market, the activity should be legalized, controlled and taxed.
In February 2024, the Parliament approved legal amendments that allowed the return of sports betting only online, through licensed operators. However, the law remained without full implementation due to the failure to open licensing procedures.
Under the new legal framework, citizens will have to register with an identification document on the websites or applications of licensed companies. It is also envisaged to create an electronic registry to exclude people with addiction problems from gambling.
But while the control and licensing system has not yet started functioning, the government has begun to calculate the revenues it expects from it.
Thus, betting, which in 2018 was considered such a great risk to families that it should have been banned completely, is today treated as an economic activity that can bring millions of euros to the budget. The government argues that legalization will bring out of the informality a market that continued to exist despite the ban, but the question remains open as to how the social consequences that once served as a reason for its closure will be controlled.
Finally, from the fight to save Albanians from gambling, the government has moved on to calculating the money it expects to receive from them. Once the problem was how much citizens lost. Now the draft budget states how much the state expects to gain.
