TLDR
- Hungary removed the concession powers of its gambling regulator, the SZTFH, under a law that took effect on October 1, 2026.
- The law also scraps the SZTFH’s Concession Council and ends its prior consent role in concession deals.
- The SZTFH president must hand all concession files to the minister for state assets within 30 days.
- The government questioned the regulator’s independence, pointing to its head’s past role in the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office.
- The SZTFH disputed the bill’s reasoning and said it ran more than 23,000 concession inspections from 2021 to 2025.
Hungary has removed the concession powers of its gambling regulator. The change took effect on October 1, 2026.
The regulator is the Supervisory Authority for Regulated Activities, known as the SZTFH. The new law also scraps the authority’s Concession Council.
The government submitted bill T/639 on September 8, 2026. The bill changes several laws related to concessions.
Parliament handled the bill under an urgent procedure. Lawmakers passed it in a final vote on September 22.
The law was published in the Magyar Közlöny, Hungary’s official gazette, on September 30. It is listed as Act LIX of 2026.
Government Questions Regulator’s Independence
The SZTFH was created in 2021 under the previous government. It oversees gambling, the tobacco market, and mining. It also covers the Hungarian Chamber of Judicial Officers, the register of liquidators, and checks on activities under concession contracts.
The government said the authority’s independence was in doubt. It pointed to the person chosen to lead it for a nine-year term.
“Although the supervisory authority, as an autonomous regulatory body, was obliged to report only to Parliament, the independence of the SZTFH is called into question by the fact that a former administrative state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office was appointed to head it, for nine years,” the government stated.
The government also said it plans to abolish the authority in the future. Its duties would be spread among other state bodies.
SZTFH Pushes Back on the Bill
The SZTFH responded on the day of the vote. It published a corrective notice disputing what it called serious inaccuracies in the bill’s reasoning and in the parliamentary debate.
The authority said concession contracts are actually signed by a minister chosen by the government in power. Since October 1, 2021, the SZTFH’s role was to give prior consent before a contract was signed, changed, or ended.
The SZTFH also shared its inspection record. It said it carried out more than 23,000 concession-related inspections between 2021 and 2025. These covered casinos, online casinos, national tobacco shops, and mining.
Under the new law, the SZTFH’s prior consent is no longer needed for concession procedures. This includes procedures that were already underway when the law took effect.
The change applies to tenders and invitations to submit offers. It also covers the signing, changing, or ending of concession contracts.
The government can now decide by decree which minister or central government body will run concession tenders. That body will also handle contracts on the state’s behalf.
The SZTFH president has 30 days from the law taking effect to hand over the authority’s concession files. The files go to the minister responsible for state assets and include documents on tenders, contracts, and inspections.
For now, there are no talks of the SZTFH being abolished, according to European Gaming.
