On January 12, it was announced that a clerical error in the Gambling Tax Act passed in December last year eliminated the taxation of online casinos in 2026. Due to the legal flaw, the state will lose about €4 million in projected gambling tax revenue for that year. The act has since been corrected.

ERR knows the adviser's name, but has chosen not to publish it as they are not a public figure.

Riigikogu Chancellery Director Antero Habicht told ERR that violations were identified in the adviser's work.

"In January, disciplinary proceedings were initiated at the Riigikogu Chancellery, as a result of which the official was dismissed from service as a disciplinary penalty for a serious breach of official duties. The trigger for this was an error made by the official during the processing of a draft law, but the termination of the service relationship was not caused solely by the fact of the error, but also by other circumstances related to the case that emerged during the disciplinary proceedings," he said

Habicht added that the chancellery did not want to disclose additional details of the disciplinary proceedings, but added that termination of the contract was considered "to be inevitable and justified".

The Riigikogu Chancellery's five-page directive on which the dismissal is based, however, reveals that "the official became aware of a significant error on January 5, 2026, but did not immediately inform the Chancellery's leadership (the director and deputy director). This concerned information for which heightened public and media interest could have been anticipated. The Chancellery's leadership learned of the incident a week later, through the media, from a corresponding article published on ERR's news portal on January 12, 2026."

"We also wish to reject the claim that the proceedings were political. The decision was made based on the above circumstances as a result of the disciplinary proceedings," Habicht said.

Opposition party Isamaa claimed the official was "dismissed on the spot" in a press release commenting on the incident.

Finance Committee member Aivar Kokk commented on the matter, saying coalition parties Reform and Eesti 200 were looking for a scapegoat for the last two months.

"Such petty and unprecedentedly cynical behavior, an inability to admit one's mistakes and the labeling of someone else as the culprit, is unbelievable," he said.

"First, a Ministry of Finance official was blamed, then all members of the Riigikogu collectively," Kokk listed.

He said politicians are used to "this kind of mudslinging," but mistakes must be admitted: "In my 15 years in the Riigikogu, I do not recall anything so disgraceful."

Kokk added that Minister of Finance Jürgen Ligi (Reform) had already said the error was a result of the law being drafted quickly "under very difficult circumstances."

"So take a look in the mirror, coalition MPs! And be ashamed that someone else was made to answer for your sin!" he added.

Akkermann not commenting on the issue

After the scandal broke earlier this year, newspaper Eesti Ekspress wrote that the adviser had warned in November that preparing the online casino bill would require more time.

"A law is not a poem or a newspaper article, where it does not matter if a word is wrong," the official was quoted as saying. "Time must be given for a law to be completed and mature. Otherwise, the potential damage can be very large."

To ERR's knowledge, this was one of the criticisms that led to the termination of the official's contract.

In January, Eesti Ekspress quoted Riigikogu Finance Committee Chair Annely Akkermann (Reform) as saying of the official that "they did indeed complain that too many things were coming in and they could not keep up or go into sufficient depth."

Akkermann declined to comment further on the issue on Wednesday, telling "Aktuaalne kaamera" news that it is a matter of bureaucracy. She said it is not good practice for a politician to comment on the activities of an official, nor vice versa.

Official's explanations found unconvincing

In a written explanation submitted on January 29, the official said the draft legislation was processed at an accelerated pace, the workload was heavy and the error might have come to light under better conditions. She added that the procedure for reporting such errors was not clearly defined and that the purpose of the interview was to clarify the situation and protect her professional reputation.

The official who has worked for more than 30 years will receive compensation for 13.38 calendar days of unused vacation. She has the right to file a challenge to the directive imposing the disciplinary penalty with the director of the Chancellery of the Riigikogu or to submit a complaint to the Tallinn Administrative Court within 30 days from the day she became aware or should have become aware of the directive imposing the disciplinary penalty.

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