Premier Betting Shop: Private operators pay 99.14% to the FBiH budget, while Lutrija BIH pays only 0.86%

Why would a politician want to destroy domestic private companies and push money from their own country abroad through a state-owned company? At first glance, it is hard to fathom the answer to this question. But again, a reasonable person knows that “politics” in practice does not mean care for society and the state, but primarily care for one's own pocket and personal interests.

From this, the answer to the initial question becomes apparent, especially if we put the real actors into context: Amir Zukić, the SDA party, Lutrija BiH and the Austrian Novomatic on one side, and duly registered legal private gambling operators on the other. To get an even clearer picture, let's go back a few, more precisely, six years.

“Love” between Lutrija BiH, SDA and Novomatic 

At the beginning of December 2010, the “El Casino” was opened in the Holiday Inn hotel in Sarajevo. It was presented as a joint project of Lutrija BiH and Novomatic, and as Dnevni avaz wrote on 11.01.2011 in an article titled “Tihić's deputy and Bakir's lobbyist opened a casino”, the opening of “El Casino” was also attended by high-ranking individuals from SDA, Salmir Kaplan and Asim Sarajlić. According to Dnevni avaz's reporting at the time, certain prominent SDA members had an ownership stake in “El Casino”. All of this testifies to the long history of the “love” between Lutrija BiH, SDA and Novomatic.

Lutrija BiH and Novomatic today?

What do we know today, six years later, about Novomatic in BiH? They founded the company HTL d.o.o. Sarajevo, which has a contract with Lutrija BiH worth over 700,000 KM and which installed 1,500 Novomatic machines in Lutrija BiH. In the last five years, the company HTL achieved a profit of 11.6 million KM, while Lutrija BiH in the same period achieved a profit of 4.9 million KM. Lutrija BiH had a profit of 4.3 million KM in 2011, and since entering into cooperation with HTL, its profit fell to 193 thousand in 2012, 4 thousand in 2013, 262 thousand in 2014 and 138 thousand in 2015. It is evident that HTL (i.e., Novomatic) benefited many times more from the contract than Lutrija BiH, which raises the question of why the state-owned company signed such a detrimental contract for itself?

False information

“Lutrija's turnover is three percent of the total turnover of gambling operators, and that Lutrija, with a turnover of three percent, contributed five million KM to the budget. Gambling operators paid only two million KM.” This claim was made by Amir Zukić and published by the portal Faktor.ba on 15.07.2016. In doing so, Amir Zukić, as many times before, used sweeping statements, lies and deceptions, all to further discredit private operators in the eyes of the public. However, the following table (below) reveals the real truth:

Income statement 2011-2015.

Source: bizinfo.ba

HTL D.O.O. SARAJEVO

Revenue: 43,168,228.00 KM 

Total profit: 11,653,595.00 KM 

LUTRIJA BIH

Revenue: 153,456,919.00 KM

Total profit: 4,902,571.00 KM

This table shows the payments of fees on stakes and RNG games, profit taxes and taxes on winnings over 100 KM in the first six months of 2016. It is visible that a total of 17,834,920.50 KM was paid, of which private operators paid 17,681,114.00 KM, or 99.14%, and Lutrija BiH only 153,806.50 KM, or only 0.86%. Where the remaining 4,846,193.50 KM of the difference to the 5 million KM that Amir Zukić mentions as Lutrija BiH's payment is, perhaps he and his party (SDA) know.

And while Amir Zukić and SDA are insidiously trying to destroy private operators in order to channel money from the gambling market into Lutrija BiH and Novomatic machines, these same private operators continue to fill the federal budget which politicians are mercilessly emptying. Of the total 17,834,920.50 KM, only Premier Betting Shop, as the leading and largest operator in BiH, through its two companies (Premier World Sport and Premier Sport) paid 7,361,566.00 KM into the federal budget in the first six months of 2016, or 41.27% of the total amount of all payments.

What are the real reasons and goals?

Despite the constant deception by Amir Zukić and his party colleagues, we still believe that the wider public can distinguish truth from lies and see the bigger picture and what lies beneath Zukić's sweeping and false accusations. The Federal Government manages Lutrija BiH, Lutrija BiH has Novomatic machines, and now Amir Zukić and SDA, under the patronage of Novomatic, want to destroy private operators and channel the entire turnover from the domestic gambling market into Lutrija BiH, so they can share the “pie” among themselves and with Novomatic.

For personal enrichment, they are ready to destroy private companies that pay 75 million KM annually into the federal budget and employ 5,500 workers, for whom salaries are regularly and timely paid and contributions are made. Employees have stood behind the operators and are determined to fight for their rights.

Written by: Premier sportska kladionica

Text taken from Oslobođenje