The main advantage of this piece of legislation was that it provided legal basis for the regulation of the rapidly developing online gambling industry.
These two acts very soon proved to be insufficient due to the rapid development of technology in the field of gambling industry.
The requirement to obtain an activity license and an operation permit to legally offer gambling services have also remained unchanged.
[5] Today, the issue of activity licences and operating permits for gambling and lotteries is the responsibility of the Estonian Tax and Customs Board.
These stringent rules are contrary to the principles of free competition that are promoted by the European Commission, but Estonian authorities say that this is just a part of their step-by-step approach to ensuring that gambling industry is properly regulated and causes no harm to the society.
In January 2011 Estonia opened its gambling market to offshore operators, but on condition that they would get licenses from the Estonian authority.
Alongside legalization of the market, Estonia started blocking unlicensed gambling sites that tried to offer their services to Estonian citizens.
[9] Lotto, keno, bingo and scratchcard lotteries in Estonia are mostly offered by the state owned Eesti Loto.
In 2009, Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip suggested privatizing the company to help the budget of Estonia, but as of 2011 it remained a property of the state.
The reason for their action was the fact that Eesti Loto published the jackpot estimates on a weekly basis for the two most popular lotteries.
[13] After the case has been taken to the court, Eesti Loto was granted the right to continue publishing the amounts of expected jackpots [14] The legal age for playing lotteries in Estonia is 16.