Albania still has no betting licenses two years after relaunch law passed

Government projections put annual state revenue at around 2 billion lek, about $24.8 million, once licensed betting actually starts, with another 15% of whatever operators generate in gross gaming revenue routed separately into a fund earmarked specifically for culture, sport, technology, and innovation instead of folding straight into general state coffers alongside everything else the government collects.

None of that revenue comes from a broad reopening, though: the relaunch covers online sports betting only, the one activity carved out for return after a seven-year nationwide ban on the industry. Online gambling and land-based bookmakers remain illegal under the same law, and even the number of sports betting licenses isn’t fixed in advance — the Licensing Commission decides how many of the possible ten actually get issued once real applications start arriving.

A license costs a minimum of 400 million lek, about $5 million, and buys ten years of market access, assuming a company can clear the eligibility bar first: a registered joint-stock entity inside Albania, operating history in at least three EU or OECD gambling markets, and turnover of at least 2 billion lek, roughly $24.8 million, in its most recent fiscal year alone — a threshold few smaller operators could realistically meet on their own.

Every piece of that framework is technically ready. The Gambling Supervisory Authority confirmed in July 2026 that all eight regulatory documents needed to run the licensing regime are finished — the same authority overseeing a process that’s already run more than two years past the 2024 law that created it, with still no date set for when operators can actually apply and start the clock on that ten-year license term they would be paying for.