Circular No 2 of 2020 - Certificate of Approval for Employees Under the Seychelles Gambling Act

Circular No. 2 of 2020 Date: 4 th February, 2020 Certificate of Approval of employees under the Seychelles Gambling Act This Circular is being issued to all licensees under the Seychelles Gambling Act, 2014 (“the Act”) following the enactment of the Seychelles Gambling (Fees) Rules, 2020. Section 31(1) of the Act stipulates that “the holder of a licence under this Act shall not employ any person in his or her business of gambling unless such person is a holder of a certificate of approval issued by the Authority”. As such, the Financial Services Authority (“the Authority”) has finalized the application form for a Certificate of Approval, whereby all employees working in the business of gambling needs to possess a certificate of approval issued by the Authority under Section 33(2) of the Act. As specified under section 31(2) of the Act, the Authority may specify, by rules, any occupation to be an occupation for the purposes of section 31(1) and may classify the employees as key employee and other employees. Consequently, in line with Seychelles Gambling (Fees) Rules, 2020, employees are classified as follows:

1. “Key employee” (employee with managerial function) is an employee taking up any management position within the gambling licensed premises, such as Financial Controller, Casino or Slot Machine Manager, Floor Manager, Human Resource Manager, Surveillance and Security manager.
2. “Other employee” (employee without managerial function) is an employee whose work is directly involved with the gambling floor area such as pit boss, cashier, surveillance, dealers, etc. Applications for a Certificate of Approval must be accompanied by the applicable fee set out in the Seychelles Gambling (Fees) Rules, 2020 Effective 1st March, 2020, licensees are required to submit a duly completed application form for a Certificate of Approval of each employee that falls under the aforesaid classifications with the appropriate supporting document and application fees. Licensees have until 31st December, 2020 to complete this exercise for their existing employees except for employees covered under second paragraph of section 31(1). As such, employees currently in continuous employment and were employed by licensees before the enactment of the Seychelles Gambling Act, 2014, that is 19th January 2015, will not be subjected to this circular until such time that a new law comes into force.

However, this will not apply to foreign employees that remain in continuous employment as upon renewal of the Gainful Occupation Permit (GOP), this circular will apply. Please note that the Circular No. 5 of 2019, dated 26th December, 2019, must be read in conjunction with this circular. The Authority will only process complete applications. Applications that are deemed to be incomplete will be returned to the applicant. Applicants will have a period of 1 month for resubmission of the application. Applications not re-submitted within the 1-month cut-off period will be considered as void and a new application would have to be lodged along with payment of the required application fee, should the applicant remain interested in proceeding further with the application. The holder of a licence under this Act needs to exercise its own employee due diligence test and to submit the application of the prospective employee. Financial Services Authority