In the year marked by the coronavirus pandemic, measures of movement, work, and gatherings ban, the citizens of the Federation spent more than one billion and 300 million BAM on gambling.
Thus, half of the country spent in betting shops the amount of money that BiH, in the meantime, is asking from the IMF in order to try to cope with the economic consequences of the pandemic.
According to the data of the Tax Administration (TA) of the FBiH, in 2020, the organizers of games of chance by betting achieved a total turnover based on payments of 1.359.355.454 BAM. The total turnover in 2020 of organizers of games of chance by betting is 394.687.851 BAM or 22.50 percent lower than the turnover in 2019 – it was stated in the data of TAFBiH.
Psychologist Marko Romic, head of the Club of Treated Addicts from Mostar, says that when the betting shops were closed, people switched to online gambling, so it all remained at the same level, and became even more intensified because of online way.
”Those 1.36 billion show the horror of our reality. Despite such a drastic change in our life, that was caused by corona, nothing has changed here. Many, unfortunately, slip into that wrong, insane way and think that they can get the money easily, without sweat and any effort. We see the consequences, the entire community is getting poorer, a small group of people is becoming extremely rich, and we are all sinking deeper and deeper, ” Romic emphasizes.
Both rich and poor have always given a great amount of money for something that gives them pleasure, states clinical psychologist Jasmina Dizdarevic. Apart from the passion and desire for excitement, the fact that people spend the amount of money that is needed for buying a kilogram of bread or meat, they spend in a betting shop during the day also testifies to their desperate desire to get a better life overnight.
”As a psychologist, I can tell you that there has never been greater dissatisfaction in every field, for instance unhappy, lonely and depressed people, with silent tears without tears, which hurts the most. You have no one to make you confident in the morning. When you leave the house, you don’t have any money, you don’t have anyone to talk to, you are afraid of the corona, unemployment, politics, the impossibility of traveling, I could make infinitely list, ” says Dr. Dizdarevic.
Turnover in the cantons:
Tuzla 249.987.931 BAM
Sarajevo 231.119.462 BAM
Herzegovina-Neretva 226.438.929 BAM
Zenica-Doboj 177.545.410 BAM
Central Bosnia 173.690.322 BAM
Una-Sana 127.753.175 BAM
West Herzegovina 86.311.486 BAM
Livno 48.200.958 BAM
Posavina 21.919.928 BAM
15.757.314 BAM
Bosnian-Podrinje 15.757.314 BAM
District Brcko 630.533 BAM
