Lawmakers race to catch up

The tangled web of internet gambling is an issue that is testing Governments worldwide


The Government has an "open mind" on the possibility of regulating internet-based gambling before its proposed two-year review of general gambling policy is complete.

Internal Affairs Minister Mark Burton says that if "the rapidity of development" of net-based gambling requires early action, he is certainly prepared to consider it.

"The technology developments in the past decade or more have completely overtaken the legislative framework," he says.

Australia imposed a 12-month moratorium on new internet-based gambling licences from May 19, with a maximum penalty of up to $1.4 million a day for any breach. On July 7, it announced a study into the feasibility of a permanent ban on net-based gambling.

These moves are a dramatic reversal of the previous policy of seeking a worldwide advantage by being one of the first countries to license businesses offering internet gambling.

Although anyone can start a gambling business on the net from anywhere in the world, the licensing system allowed Australian-based businesses to promote themselves as offering the "security" of being officially regulated.

A Senate committee recommended the one-year freeze in March. It said the freeze should be used to develop rules requiring a permanent screen display of gains and losses, to outlaw direct credit-card online gambling, and to develop better security of transactions and protection of privacy and minors.

Several bills to ban internet gambling have also been debated in the United States Congress during the past year, but none has passed so far.

A Washington report last month said that more than 700 websites offered everything from blackjack to wagering on college baseball. Online gamblers were estimated to have lost $2.6 billion in 1999.

Auckland-based Sky City announced last week that it was buying up to 33 per cent of Canbet, a Canberra-based sports betting website, for up to $50 million.

The chief executive of the Casino Control Authority, Trevor Garrett, says the authority asked former Internal Affairs Minister Jack Elder several years ago for permission to regulate locally based internet gambling sites, but the approach was ignored.

Professor Max Abbott says the internet is likely to have a "dramatic" impact on gambling addiction in the next few years.

His latest survey, published last month, found that so far only 0.1 per cent of New Zealanders had gambled through the internet - mostly on racing and sports events through the TAB.