Casinos are to start paying taxes again in the Czech Republic, following a change to the regulations on gambling. Until now, they’ve been allow to give away money to non-profit organizations committed to activities that promote the public good. But there are deep suspicions that not all of the CZK 3.5bn casinos donated to such organizations in 2011 furthered the public good.
Hospodarske noviny, which leads with the story on its front page, says it’s tried to trace such donations for years, but still can’t rule out that some portion of the money isn’t flowing back into the pockets of the casino owners. It quotes police sources as saying that they simply don’t have time to track down the entire money chain. The paper says that Prague police could solve their first case of casino fraud since the 1990’s, now that the Finance Ministry analysts claims to have mapped out how CZK 300m in donations from Helvet Group and Merkur Casino were sent through fake organizations.
