Number of gambling machines might drop by one third

An amendment to the lottery bill which is being prepared by the Czech finance ministry seeks to reduce the number of gambling machines by up to one third, TV Nova has reported. Municipalities will no longer have the authority to permit the use of the machines but instead will be able to ban all gambling on their territories. Gambling machine operators will have to apply to the ministry for the permission. In the Czech Republic, about 56,000 of these machines are currently in use; last year, a record of over CZK 50 billion (USD 2.5 billion) was spent on them.