The online betting market in the Czech Republic is a growing one, with revenues that reached 4 billion K? ($190 million) last year, but local firms were shut out.

The traditional Czech wagering market, controlled by Tipsport, Fortuna, Chance and Synot Tip reached about 12 K? billion in sales in 2006.After more than three years of futile appeals against State rules that bar Czech betting agencies from offering online gambling, companies appear to have had enough.

Some, including Tipsport and Fortuna, are considering launching independent foreign outlets through which they could provide online betting to Czech customers.

“Fortuna has repeatedly applied for an online licence, but our requests were repeatedly turned down with the explanation that online betting is contrary to the existing lottery law,” Fortuna director Martin Todt said.

Following the unsuccessful challenge at the Finance Ministry, Fortuna’s owner, Penta, a financial holding company, has applied for a licence in Malta, where it may start another betting company, Fortunawin.

With a Maltese licence, the firm would be regarded as foreign and thus able to operate as other foreign gambling companies do.

“We had to consider all options because of the Finance Ministry’s unequal treatment,” Penta spokeswoman Jana Studni?ková said.

Tipsport is also considering offering online betting via its Slovak partner, Doxxbet. Tipsport entered the Slovak market last year.

Petr Vrzá?, head of the Finance Ministry’s lottery department, said that any Czech company offering online betting faces a fine of 500,000 K? and could lose its licence.

But both Studni?ková and Vrzá? are quick to emphasise that the new online companies, expected to enter the Czech market later this year, are legally separate from local betting firms.

“It’s not Fortuna that is applying for a foreign licence, but Penta,” Studni?ková pointed out. “Fortunawin would have nothing to do with Fortuna,” Todt said.

Companies like these have argued, unsuccessfully, that the Finance Ministry’s rules put Czech businesses at a disadvantage when competing foreign companies offer all manner of online gaming to Czechs.

And, while the State consistently turns down Czech firms’ requests for licences for online betting, the Finance Ministry has been unable to force out foreign online companies that offer the service without asking permission.

Foreign companies base their actions on a ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg that stipulates a licence issued anywhere within the European Union entitles its holder to provide betting services in the entire EU.