All you online poker pros who were planning to triumphantly move up to the Great White North and continue that poker career you dropped out of college to pursue may want to think about skipping Ontario.Lou Krieger says, "A proposed bill in the Canadian province of Ontario would prevent advertising illegal online gaming sites in the province.
Online gaming is not regulated at the provincial level in Canada, and current enforcement of existing regulations has not been a priority. The proposed legislation would ban advertisements that promote online gaming sites. More importantly, enforcing this new law would take place at the provincial level, allowing Ontario to step up enforcement."
Hey, no worries! You can just pack up and move to France, right? Not so fast, monsieur. Get ready to order a plate of Freedom Fries next time you're at the casino, as you read this little gem from Launchpoker: "The French proposal, launched after the riots in that country in 2005, includes a couple of items referencing online poker. The first, similar to the UIGEA, would require banks to block transactions to online gambling sites. The second would require any online portal with a French facing to post warnings about site content that the French government finds objectionable or face severe fines and imprisonment."
Awesome. The USA is once again setting a shining example of freedom for the rest of the world to follow.
1. The sky is falling, the sky is falling ...
The proposed French law may be worrisome (except when one remembers the French propensity not to actually enforce any of a number of onerous regulations), but the Ontario one is really a joke. After all, cigarette advertising has been banned in many jurisdictions for a long time, and yet the tobacco industry does not seem to be on its last legs.
Posted at 1:37AM on Nov 28th 2006 by Michael Albert