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This thesis is studying the current global as well as Czech gambling industry with the focus on internet gambling activities. The work begins with the description of various gambling activities. The focus is taken on the internet gambling activities with description of the specifics and the current European as well as US legal frame. Next part is dedicated to the psychology of gambling together with the pathological gambling addiction. In next part the thesis studies the current situation on the Czech market - history, main official legal providers as well as main grey market providers. Second part of the work is the case study of the launch of the internet lottery games by Fortuna Entertainment Group. This case study is based on a desk research of previous successful best practices in the internet gambling industry from all around the world.

Les jeux de hasard furent connus et pratiqués par l’homme depuis les premières civilisations. Mais dès l’Antiquité gréco-romaine, ces jeux se sont attirés les foudres des moralistes, ecclésiastiques, et législateurs, chacun pour ses propres motifs. Des lois sévères furent édictées par les législateurs de l’Antiquité, qui furent par la suite reprises par les canonistes et les juristes de l’Ancien droit, ainsi que par les rédacteurs du Code civil, et ce, dans le but d’éradiquer, ou du moins de cantonner cette pratique ludique. Mais le désir humain de pratiquer ces jeux de hasard fut plus fort que ces lois, et la pratique y a survécu. Au cours du XXe siècle, et alors que certains États de par le monde ont choisi la prohibition absolue, d’autres, comme la France, ont opté pour une autorisation contrôlée sous l’égide de l’État. Ainsi fut créé le triptyque prohibition-exception-monopole, sous lequel le jeu se développa considérablement. Et quand le développement technologique a permis d’offrir les jeux de hasard à travers l’internet, le secteur des jeux d’argent a atteint en France, et de par le monde, des limites jamais connues auparavant au cours de l’histoire. Mais ce développement exceptionnel a amené avec lui des défis nouveaux, notamment au plan financier et sécuritaire, mais aussi au plan européen où le modèle français monopolistique fut critiqué. Pour faire face à ces défis, de nouvelles lois furent promulguées au cours des récentes années. Mais toutes furent en deçà de l’ampleur des défis. La tâche est entamée, mais le gros du travail reste à accomplir. / Games of chance were known and practiced by man since the earliest civilizations. But all the way since the greco-roman antiquity, these games have attracted the ire of moralists, clergymen and legislators, each for their own motives. Strict laws were enacted by the Antiquity legislators, laws that were later upheld by canonists and jurists of the Old law, as well as the civil Code editors, in order to eliminate, or at least confine this recreational practice. But the human desire to enjoy these games of chance was stronger than these laws, and the practice survived. Over the course of the 20th century, and while certain States around the world chose absolute prohibition, others, like France, opted for a controlled authorization under the auspices of the State. Thus was created the prohibition-monopoly-exception triptych, under which gambling grew considerably. And when the technological development allowed games of chance to be provided through the internet, the gambling industry reached in France and around the world, limits never known before in the course of the human history. But this exceptional development has brought new challenges along, mainly in the finance and security areas, but also at the European legal level where the French monopoly model was criticized. To take up these challenges, new laws were enacted in recent years. But all fell short of the challenges scale. The task was initiated, but most of the work remains to be done.

Les jeux d’argent sont aujourd’hui au cœur d’un débat de société. L’inquiétude qu’ils suscitent et la dangerosité qu’on leur confère se traduisent par la diffusion croissante dans les médias de discours relatifs à l’addiction. Progressivement reconnue depuis les années 80, celle-ci est significative : elle prouve que le jeu d’argent peut présenter de réelles menaces pour l’individu lorsqu’il est pratiqué avec excès. Cette dénonciation renoue avec les discours relatifs à ces pratiques sous l’Ancien Régime. Cependant, à cette époque, le jeu est essentiellement rejeté pour des raisons sociales et morales : outre de représenter un danger pour les familles, il pousse à négliger le travail et remet en cause l’ordre social établi. Entre cet « Ancien Régime » des jeux et la situation actuelle, un système transitoire a existé. En effet, entre 1836, date à laquelle une loi interdit formellement toutes les loteries, jusqu’en 1954, année de création du Tiercé, l’Etat ne cesse d’intervenir, légiférant en faveur du jeu d’argent. Cette période, qui correspond à une officialisation et à une banalisation des pratiques ludiques, est au cœur de ce travail. Il s’agit d’étudier les mutations réglementaires des jeux d’argent et les motivations qui y sont affiliées, et d’analyser les usages sociaux du temps consacré aux jeux à travers l’étude de leurs pratiques. / Money games are today the center of the attention through a burning public debate. They are usually depicted as the origin of many vices and therefore stimulate a lot of worrying from society, thus the increasing broadcasting in the major medias of their incriminated connection to addiction diseases.Addiction has been growingly associated to gambling since the 1980’s : the money games are indeed more and more denunciated for being a real threat to the individuals who excessively enjoy this special hobby.This point of view is not new and is closely connected to the Old Regime’s widely spread opinions. Nevertheless, at this specific time period, money games were mainly rejected for their social and moral downsides : not only they stood for family issues but they were also incriminated as inviting the players to neglect valuable work and/or the established society rules and habits. There has been an in-between situation between the today’s widely spread gambling activities and the prosecution from the Old Regime. Indeed the government has repeatedly issued regulations to widen the gambling activities from 1836 when there was a law against money games till 1954 when the Tiercé was offcially created. This thesis work focuses on analysing the money games activities between these 2 milestones. The main point is to study the regulations variations about the money games and the reasons behind them. An other important aspect is to analyse the social usages of the time spent on money games through their various shapes and identities.

The thesis discusses legal regulations of lotteries and similar games especially from the tax perspective and according to the state before and after 1 January 2012, when a significant amendment of the Lottery Act and related regulations was carried out. The work explains the development of community income as a result of the amendment and also the development of funds spent on community purposes. Possible changes to the issue are suggested herein.

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Empirical evidence has shown that visually enhancing the saliency of reward probabilities can ease the cognitive demands of value comparisons and improve value-based decisions in old age. In the present study, we used a time-varying drift diffusion model that includes starting time parameters to better understand (1) how increasing the saliency of reward probabilities may affect the dynamics of value-based decision-making and (2) how these effects may interact with age. We examined choices made by younger and older adults in a mixed lottery choice task. On a subset of trials, we used a colorcoding scheme to highlight the saliency of reward probabilities, which served as a decision-aid. The results showed that, in control trials, older adults started to consider probability relative to magnitude information sooner than younger adults, but that their evidence accumulation processes were less sensitive to reward probabilities than that of younger adults. This may indicate a noisier and more stochastic information accumulation process during value-based decisions in old age. The decision-aid increased the influence of probability information on evidence accumulation rates in both age groups, but did not alter the relative timing of accumulation for probability versus magnitude in either group.

Concern of this diploma thesis is indirect taxation in the Slovak Republic. An aim of this work is to compare consumption taxes and their development in Slovakia and other EU countries and also to identify advantages and deficiencies of the Slovak tax system with focus on the indirect taxation. As even in the sophisticated tax systems of distinction we may find ways for possible reform, suggestions for such improvements in analyzed areas are also included in the diploma thesis.

Over the past few decades Classical music, as an established art form, has increasingly struggled world wide as a sustainable industry. The music preferences of the general public have been moving away from the traditional symphonic concerts, and both public and private sponsorships have been diminishing. In South Africa, orchestras moved from fully government subsidised organizations to self-sustaining companies after closure of almost all orchestras in 2000 due to new political leadership and cultural funding redirections. The South African government’s policy on Art and Culture has been completely restructured in the view of the post-apartheid government’s new priorities. The creation of a National Arts Council saw the end of separate provincial art councils and centralized the distribution of private funds. The annual ring-fenced funding for the three orchestras in three different provinces was eventually established. The Department of Arts and Culture realized that funding of all cultural institutions in the country cannot be achieved by government alone and therefore created various companies and trusts, such as National Lottery, to generate additional funding. The private sector is also being encouraged by the ministry to provide assistance and collaborate in supporting of arts and culture. The three full-time orchestras - two established post 2000 - that have persevered in the new conditions and are functioning to this day are KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. All three had to adapt to new work loads and undergo a difficult transformation into money-earning business way of conducting their day-to-day operations. New concepts for the running of an orchestra, such as budgeting, advertising, planning, audience creation, outreach education, management reconstruction and fund raising, were slowly taken up and old mentalities associated with how orchestras were previously ran were finally discarded. This dissertation describes the status quo and traces the history of South Africa’s orchestras over the past fifteen years. / Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Music / unrestricted