Private concerns involved in lottery, videolotto and online betting…

in its meeting today, the cabinet is seeking even solutions for uneven situations as concerns all the burning issues of the coming days and months: new motives for investments in our country, opening up closed professions, tax evasion, privatizations, development of state property and gambling…

Basically it’s the start of the great bargaining of the unions with the government for more than 100 occupations becoming open to competition, with lawyers, accountants and pharmacists topping the list, but especially in relation to tourism and retail. Which, when and how they will open up will be set by March, but the proceedings and the social dialogue with interested parties will last until the summer.

But the government has to decide what will happen with the privatizations by the end of the year. The negative stock market conjuncture makes the economic team cautious, placing the burden on the use of state property. A lot rides on Arab interest in casinos and marinas in Elliniko, aiming at 5 of the 7bil which are considered revenue from privatizations.

According to sources, there is no consensus in the background, nor any will to privatize corporations. Only for the state lottery (under independent management by the ministry of Finance and degraded by the modern forms of gambling) is there an indication of the intention to sell to private concerns,, as long as the state’s consultants determine there is investment interest.  

We should say here that by means of  this bill, the ministry of Finance will regulate the gambling market on one hand, and on the other it will introduce online gambling, videolotto and horse race betting. The aim is to collect about 700mil euros from the issuing of online gambling permits and disposal of VTLS terminals.

In contrast, for the state corporations already in the stock market, but also for the “problematic” ones like Larko, no developments are visible during 2011, whatever the report of the consultants might be. There is a possibility that their privatization potentialmight “warm up” from 2012.

Until then, and in order to reach the memorandum numbers, the ministers agree on the fund collecting logic of granting real estate property of the state to private concerns. But not for everything. It seems that everybody feels comfortable with the prospect that the Arab investors from Qatar will remain until the end to claim the investment of 5bil euros for a casino and marina, hoping nothing will go wrong, as was the case with the Astakos investment .