A clerical mistake in Estonia’s gambling tax law has unintentionally exempted online casinos from paying tax this year, raising concerns over potential losses for the state. Lawmakers said the error will be corrected within a month.

Finance Committee member Aivar Kokk (Isamaa) first alerted ERR to the problem, noting that the issue had already arisen during committee discussions. “Games of chance and remote gambling were left out of this year's taxation, meaning online casino games are not being taxed in 2026,” Kokk said.

The error stems from an amendment to the Gambling Tax Act passed on December 3 and signed by the president on December 18. The law now sets a 5.5% tax rate on proceeds from “skill games” as defined in Section 1, Subsection 1, Clause 5, while failing to include games of chance.

Kokk said the omission of “games of chance” is the source of the problem. “There would have been no issue if the term ‘games of chance’ had also been included,” he said. The law’s provisions for following years were drafted correctly.

Finance Committee chair Annely Akkermann (Reform) told ERR that the law will be corrected within a month. “This mistake is indeed in the Gambling Tax Act and we will fix it,” she said.

Akkermann added that in her 12 years in the Riigikogu, this is the first clerical error affecting one of her own bills. “No one noticed it. I personally read through the bill. Everyone read it — lawyers at the Ministry of Finance, our committee staff, members of parliament, all the way up to the president,” she said.

She outlined two options to correct the mistake, both requiring the law to be reprocessed. “One option is to attach the fix as an amendment to another bill. The other is to submit a separate bill to remove the word ‘skill games’ from the text,” Akkermann said. She added that lawmakers are likely to choose the faster approach and bundle it with another bill.

Akkermann said quick action should prevent serious financial damage from the unintended tax exemption. “Absolutely. A legal counsel from a gambling operator wrote to us and clearly stated that the intent of the legislature is obvious — no one expected that games of chance would be untaxed. It's universally understood to be a clerical error,” she said.