The Czech Republic's five biggest bookmakers are set to receive permits from the country's Finance Ministry to introduce online gambling, Radio Praha has reported.

The licenses are set to be issued on January 5th, after years of lobbying by bookmakers.

Fortuna is believed to be one of the five companies to receive a license. Company executive Tomas Bahnik told Radio Praha the deal was all about creating parity.

"We are sad and bitter that foreign Internet betting companies are allowed to operate in the Czech Republic without any control. There is no legal restriction. So basically they operate in this country illegally. So we want to have the same opportunities as foreign companies," he said.

Bahnik said that foreign companies currently make millions of Euros a year from Czech consumers, without having to pay any taxes. He added that the willingness of local companies to comply with regulations helped in bringing the government on side.

"Our main goal is to control the situation," Bahnik said. "If someone wants to bet through Fortuna on the Internet, they must register in a bricks and mortar office and show their ID...We don't accept credit cards but only regular payment cards because we don't support gambling and gamblers and we don't want people to become addicted to Internet betting. That's something foreign companies don't do."

The timing of the deal has extra significance, given that the Czech Republic is set to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union on January 1st.