Albanian Police completes gambling crackdown

TIRANA, Dec 8؁ crackdown on illegal gambling completed by Albania’s state police has revealed that nearly one quarter of the businesses inspected lacked gambling licenses.
In operations conducted over the weekend, police inspected over 260 betting parlors around the country, discovering that roughly 65 of these lacked the necessary license to operate. Aided by financial auditors from tax authorities, the police seized 400 electronic gambling machines.
Balkan Insight reports that gambling has soared in Albania in recent years. According to tax records Albanians spent more than 66 million euro on gambling in 2008, an increase of almost 70 percent from the previous year.
Earlier this year the Finance Ministry commissioned a government body to monitor gambling.