Card Player – Albania, a country in Southeastern Europe with a population of about 2.8 million, will be banning online gambling sites, the Associated Press reported.
The country is reportedly one of the poorest in Europe and officials are hoping to prevent any of what has historically been spent on online betting there from leaving the country going forward.
Albanians reportedly spend between $690 million and $965 million a year on Internet gambling.
There are domestic gambling operations in the country, and officials have been cracking down on that industry as well, but it is not being banned.
Albania’s Prime Minister, Edi Rama, said last week that the government would prepare a bill to prohibit offshore sites from offering games to those within the nation.
Albania’s economy shrunk by nearly one percent in 2012.
