The Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities will amend the current gambling bill due to a legal misunderstanding between the Communications Regulatory Agency (RAK) and foreign operators.
The bill, issued on January 15th of this year, was meant to control online gambling, but its ambiguous content ended up banning foreign operators and forcing local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block foreign gambling sites within 30 days or to face fines from €500 up to €25,000.
A public cry from online operators and ISPs has made the local Bosnian courts go back on their decision and reverse the legislation. The outcry criticized the government’s ever changing mindset and ambiguous laws that can be interpreted in many ways which can lead to unfair legal prosecution and misunderstandings.
Local citizen group called Pirate Party have claimed that the bill violated the principle of net-neutrality and the right to access information as an unalienable right of all citizens
. Srđan Rajčević, head of the Serbian Information Society Agency,  also supported foreign operators confirming that the new bill gave rise to misinterpretations that led to restricting the right to access online services.
The amended Bosnian gambling bill will allow foreign gambling operators to offer services within the country, thus lifting the fines imposed on Serbian ISPs.
