Great Britain

While nearly all of the European Union members could be and perhaps should be arguing over the myriad of byzantine online poker regulations; it appears that historical antagonists are now going to verbally spare over the dispute.

The UK House of Lords has condemned the French government and the gambling laws that protect their monopoly on gaming and poker, calling the laws "atrocious." Interestingly, the French have recently given signs of moderating their position and there are certainly more intractable members of the EU on this issue. The French government has certainly delayed its response to pressure from the EU commission on the free trade aspects around online gaming. But one wonders why now? And why point out that the punishment for online gambling is the same as for child pornographers?

Lord James of Blackheath pointed out that the punishment for a French national to place a bet with a British online bookmaker is one year in prison and a Euro 75,000 fine, the same punishment given pedophiles that download child porn.

One wonders if the European Union must now step up and actively pursue one or more countries whose online gaming laws leave them outside the statutory mandates of the EU for free and fair trade.

MGM CEO Terry Lanni said that the New Democratic leadership in the U.S. Congress could provide a chance to explore legalization of online gambling.

A new U.S. law making it illegal for banks, credit card companies and online payment systems to process payments to online gambling companies "makes no sense whatsoever. The Republican Party simply pandered to the religious right."

Lanni would like to see a study commissioned to examine whether online gambling can be successfully regulated in the United State.
The American Gaming Association, of which Lanni is the current chair, is expected to decide in December whether to pursue legislation calling for such a study.

On the other side of the pond, more reasonable and more fiscally minded politicians are going for the regulation over prohibition in their laws.

"Britain wants to be second to none in regulation of Internet gambling ... We firmly believe that the way forward is to regulate, rather than prohibit," said Peter Dean, chairman of Britain's Gaming Commission.

Dean said that from a British perspective, the U.S. ban is puzzling, in that prohibition doesn't have a conspicuous record of success in the US or Great Britian.

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