TIRANA, July 24 – As expected, Austrian Lotteries is the preliminary winner of a controversial tender held last June to award a 10-year licence on Albania’s first national lottery. The Finance Ministry says the Austrian company ranked first after the conclusion of the second stage of bids evaluation. Legal procedures foresee the final decision will be taken as soon as the 30-day deadline on complaints expires.
The national lottery process was marred by accusations by several companies who were disqualified from submitting bids and the opposition Socialist Party accusing government of corruption.
The low price, discriminatory criteria set for the participating companies, the taxes the Albanian government will benefit and the monopoly the Austrian company is given for only 3 million euros were some of the most controversial issues accompanying the process.
Only two companies participated in the tender held June 20 after Greece’s Intralot and Turkey’s Inteltek withdrew from the race concerned over the procedures the Albanian government followed and the discriminatory qualification criteria.
The first offer came from the Austrian National Lottery, while the second came from a consortium of three companies, the Italian Lottomatica, the Cypriot GTech and the Czech Synot.
In a letter sent to Finance Minister Ridvan Bode this week, Constantinos Antonopoulos, Intralot’s director, denounced the qualification criteria set for the companies and lack of a price tag “which it says makes the tender more of a present rather than a competition for a higher price.”
“To our great surprise we realized that the evaluation and award criteria do not include the licence fee or any price element whatsoever but instead the fee is fixed at an unreasonably low level for such a promising asset, as evidenced in similar licence awards globally.”
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Based on a previous government decision, bidders must had to have 15 years of experience in gambling and 5 years of experience in organizing online lotteries. The opposition Socialist Party has strongly opposed the process as corruptive and lacking transparency. With one year to go before the next general elections, opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama has threatened to cancel the lottery and make it a state-run lottery.
Opposition Socialist Party MP Erjon Brace says government has transferred to what he calls the predetermined winning company seven licences. “The lottery is one and only and it is pure monopoly. Under this licence, the company is authorized by law to organize seven unique national games which cannot be organized by anyone else. Favours increase when it is said that the games can be organized by the retail sale of tickets online and through mobile services,” says Brace.
The Finance Ministry has rejected accusations. “The most important thing for the Finance Ministry was the selection of an operator with integrity able to meet the required technical and financial requirements,” said Finance Minister Ridvan Bode, adding that the national lotteries were a delicate activity targeted by organized crime and money laundering.
Gambling is a booming business in Albania and varies from casinos to sports betting. Albania has one casino, more than 20 bookmakers, 22 companies that organize gambling games and nine offering lottery tickets. Thousands of betting shops are scattered across the country. A gambling law, which has been in force for the past two years, bans people under 18 from entering betting shops. Regardless, teenagers are often seen there.
