A parliamentary drafter who’d served Estonia’s government for over three decades has been sacked following a clerical error that accidentally made online gambling tax-free in the country’s new Gambling Tax Act.

The mistake, discovered in December’s legislation, exempted online casino operators from taxation by limiting the tax to “skill games” only. It created a brief window where Estonia’s remote gambling sector – which lawmakers hoped would generate around €27 million in 2026 – faced zero tax liability.

Political Fallout and Blame Game

Estonian public broadcaster ERR reported the dismissal but chose not to identify the woman, citing her status as a non-public figure. The episode has triggered real political friction within Estonia’s parliament, the Riigikogu.

Finance Committee member Aivar Kokk didn’t mince words about the handling of the affair. In his fifteen years serving parliament, he described the situation as uniquely disgraceful, calling the dismissed adviser “a scapegoat.” Blame had bounced between a Finance Ministry official and the entire Riigikogu before landing on the drafter, he noted.

Chancellery Director Antero Habicht pushed back against accusations of political motivation, stating the dismissal resulted from disciplinary proceedings that considered the typo alongside other circumstances.

According to the Chancellery, the woman discovered her error on 5 January but failed to report it immediately. Her superiors only learned of the mistake a week later when ERR broke the story publicly.

Warnings Ignored

The situation got more complicated when Eesti Ekspress reported that the dismissed adviser had raised concerns back in November about insufficient time to properly prepare the online casino legislation. Her warning proved prescient.

“A law is not a poem or a newspaper article, where it does not matter if a word is wrong,” she told the publication. “Time must be given for a law to be completed and mature. Otherwise, the potential damage can be very large.”

Finance Committee Chair Annely Akkermann confirmed that the drafter had indeed complained about workload pressures, saying staff “could not keep up or go into sufficient depth.” Local media suggest the woman’s decision to criticize the Chancellery publicly may have contributed to her dismissal.

Ambitious Plans Hit Rocky Start

The debacle represents a real stumbling block for Estonia’s ambitions to position itself as a serious iGaming jurisdiction competing with Malta and Gibraltar.

The country’s strategy centers on gradually reducing its gambling tax from the current 6% to 4% by 2029, undercutting Malta’s 5% rate. For 2026, the tax rate should have dropped to 5.5%. Instead, the typo briefly created an unintended 0% rate for online gambling operators. Lawmakers rushed through a corrected version of the act this month to close the loophole.

The chaotic rollout raises questions about whether Estonia can deliver the stable regulatory environment necessary to attract major operators. When your debut as an iGaming hub involves accidental tax exemptions and public blame-shifting, convincing established operators to relocate becomes considerably harder.

The revised legislation is now in force with the intended tax rate properly specified. Whether the damage to Estonia’s reputation as a potential iGaming destination can be repaired as quickly remains to be seen.