The Turkish National Lottery (the "TNL") has been included in the privatisation agenda since 2003 without success. Most recently, the licence for the games of chance has now been transferred to the newly established Turkish wealth fund (the "Wealth Fund").
Article 82 of the Decree Law on Making Regulations under the State of Emergency numbered 680 (the "Decree Law") amends Additional Article 2 of the Decree Law regarding the Establishment and Duties of the General Directorate of the TNL and states that the licence to operate games of chance and the right to transfer such licence will be under the Wealth Fund's discretion for a period of 49 years. Before this amendment, the Privatisation Authority (the "PA") had the exclusive authority to privatise the TNL as Additional Article 2 clearly states that the PA was entitled to hold a tender to issue a licence for games of chance. According to the above Article, such licence could be granted for a maximum of 10 years and the tender would be carried out by the Dutch auction method in accordance with the Law on Privatisation numbered 4046.
As the TNL can be named as the largest national resource in the games of chance, its privatisation process is highly important for the economy. Due to unsuccessful tenders in the past years, there has been no developments in the privatisation process of this asset. It is important to underline that although the Wealth Fund is granted with the licence and right to transfer the licence, the regulation does not introduce a procedure with regards to the transfer of the licence. Although we expect that this will be clarified with a new regulation soon, it remains to be seen what the next steps will be.
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