Montenegro’s Ministry of Finance is facing an immediate backlash from licensed betting operators after revising how gambling winnings are taxed and giving the market less than a day to implement the new calculations.
According to the industry account provided in the report, licence holders were notified on 31 December that they had 24 hours to update their software and settlement systems so the revised tax treatment could be applied from 1 January 2026. The notification followed amendments to Montenegro’s Law on Personal Income Tax, which treats gambling winnings as personal income and ties the changes to the state’s 2026 budget framework.
The revised framework replaces Montenegro’s prior flat approach
Montenegro’s earlier structure applied a 15% tax on winnings above €300, but the new approach replaces it with a tiered set of thresholds.
Under the new structure described in the report, winnings up to €50 are tax-free, winnings between €50.01 and €1,500 are taxed at 10%, and winnings above €1,500 are taxed at 15%. The tax is described as applying to betting, lottery games, and global jackpots, while casino and slot-machine winnings are exempt under the updated treatment.
That split is at the center of the operator criticism
However, operators are criticising this decision for several reasons, not just because of the abrupt implementation.
Crucially for operators, the change does not apply uniformly across gambling verticals. The updated thresholds apply to betting, lottery games, and “global jackpots,” while casino and slot-machine winnings are exempt under the framework described in local reporting.
Vijesti also reported that the tax is structured to be withheld at payout (i.e., the operator deducts and remits the tax), and it connected the changes to amendments processed via parliamentary modifications rather than a standalone government bill.
Operators also say the operational burden was amplified by the timing. With the changes landing on the final day of the year and taking effect immediately, compliance became less about policy alignment and more about whether systems could be updated quickly enough to avoid customer-facing errors or reporting gaps.
“Uniform application” becomes the political risk point
MontenegroBet, the online gambling association cited in the report, said the Ministry’s process once again exposed irregularities in the application of gambling reforms across different licence holders, despite public assurances that enforcement would be uniform.
“The Ministry of Finance keeps saying in public appearances that the law will be applied equally, without exception, when the reality is completely different,” the association said in its letter.
The group also challenged the Ministry to make its workings public, arguing that the amendments were introduced without a published fiscal analysis explaining how the new structure would function in practice, how it would be enforced, or how much revenue it is expected to raise. It added that operators had previously urged the government to set a higher tax-free threshold, citing €300 rather than €50, but said that request was rejected.
Past the headline thresholds, operators described a practical compliance problem that directly affects the customer experience. MontenegroBet said the timeframe left licensees struggling to display the tax properly on customer documentation. “All operators calculate the tax on winnings, but due to the extraordinarily short implementation deadline, they are unable to display it on betting slips,” the association said.
The association went further, questioning how some licence holders appeared ready to apply the new tax immediately despite the absence of secondary legislation or detailed technical rulebooks. “The question is how privileged operators obtained information that others did not,” it said, framing the issue as one of unequal access rather than unequal competence.
No response from the Ministry as yet, but pressure continues to mount
What happens next depends on whether the Ministry issues clarifications that reduce ambiguity and whether it can credibly defend the product split that exempts casino and slot winnings while taxing betting, lottery, and jackpot outcomes. It also depends on how quickly MontenegroBet’s threatened legal steps move from warning to filing, and whether courts are willing to scrutinize the proportionality and equality arguments raised by the industry.
In the short term, the market is left with a familiar tension: Montenegro is trying to tighten control and increase discipline in gambling oversight, but the industry is signaling that the credibility of that effort will be judged less by rhetoric and more by how reforms are designed, communicated, and implemented under real-world operating constraints.
Source: Tribuna