Gidi Lipkin
Miki Zohar (Oren Ben Hakon)
On the way to the great revolution. The Ministry of Culture and Sports has finished preparing the memorandum of the bill that transfers the Gambling Council to operate under the Ministry of Culture and Sports, including all the financial aspects. As part of the coalition agreement, it was agreed that Minister Miki Zohar would receive under his office all the powers of the Toto, including the financial side.
In recent years, the Ministry of Finance has received the Toto profits, which amount to approximately NIS 600-700 million per year. From the point of view of the Ministry of Sports, this is a huge financial increase. The memorandum of the law will be reviewed at the beginning of next week by the Ministers of Finance (Bezalel Smotrich) and Justice (Yariv Levin) who together with their offices will give the various comments.
After they are finished, they will publish the memorandum of the law for public review for 21 days, and then they can move forward with the legislation. The goal of the Ministry of Culture and Sports is to finish the entire procedure in about two months.
If Zohar indeed achieves this addition in addition to the sports budget which currently stands at approximately NIS 900 million per year, this will be an opportunity for him to bring about far-reaching changes here.
There is no doubt that Minister Zohar will still have to fight with the finance officials in preparation for the approval of the 2023 budget, but according to what was agreed upon, the Toto profits will be transferred to the Ministry of Sports starting in 2023.
