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The law and online gambling

Ooh la la – French in the soup over gambling small print

The new French gambling lawyers introduced on May 12 last year have already been mired in legislation. Dans la soupe indeed.
One area of concern has been giving sports authorities the authority to levy an extra right-to-bet tax over and above the government’s own avaricious fiscal demands.
This is a unque France-only move but has not stopped football’s governing body Uefa, based in Switzerland, eyeing up the chance of yet more revenues and applying to betting companies to see if they might also like to pay a further contribution into football’s lavish coffers.
The justification for this tax – of between 0.75 and 1.8 per cent – is supposedly to arm sports bodies against the potential dangers of fraud – a deception though that would equally hurt betting companies more.
In a timely reminder that French football was not always holier than thou, the English footballer Mark Hateley this week has raised questions over a red car he received in the game before playing Marseille back in 1993 – the infamous season under chair Bernard Tapie which led to the champions being stripped of their title.
Leading the battle for clarification on the tax has been France’s own BetClic with two lawsuits arguing that information about teams playing and even players themselves was on the public domaine.
To further complicate matters it is not clear that even if the organising authority claims the tax, it would not necessarily have jurisdiction over the intellectual property of either the clubs themselves or even their players who may well likely have signed third party agreements…
Another contention is that sports bodies are remunerated according to how many bets are placed irrespective of the potential threats of fraud. They therefore have a commercial incentive to up the ante.

Clarification on all these issues was supposed to come from the CCJ – Comie Consultatif des Jeux – which had called a meeting for March but has just been subsumed by the Ministry of Interior and its chair Francois Trucy relieved of his duties…Nous verrons as they say.

No Comments by admin on February 23, 2011
filed in European gambling law

Gambling legalisation bill heads for the Senate next month (again)

A bill to legalize Internet gambling in the United States will be introduced in the House of Representatives in March, Republican Congressman John Campbell has revealed.

Campbell’s leading Democratic co-sponsor, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, said that he and Campbell believe there is “a serious chance” Congress will approve online wagering within the next two years. “Frankly, we anticipate at this point, introducing either the identical bill that passed out of the committee last year or something very, very close to it,” Campbell said. Frank’s bill that passed the House Financial Services Committee last July 28 by a vote of 41-22.
Campbell has been trying to strengthen the bill adding in consumer protections and black lists for unlicensed online sites.

“It’s obviously a different committee this year – a different makeup,” ge said. “But (Frank’s bill) did comfortably pass last year and so we think that’s a good place at least to start this year.”
There are now 34 Republicans on the committee compared to 27 Democrats.

No Comments by admin on February 22, 2011
filed in American gambling law

Texas could go all-in for legalising casinos

A MASSIVE $15 billion state budget gap could tip the vote in favour of introducing gambling in the home of poker Texas itself. Experts suggest that legalised gambling could contribute as much as $1billion for the state coffers.

Democratic Sen. Rodney Ellis plans to introduce a gaming bill that would legalize casino gambling. “The people deserve the right to choose whether they want draconian cuts to children’s education, health care for the elderly, and aid to veterans, or they want to move forward with an option to bring back the jobs and money to Texas we are giving away to other states,” Ellis said in an e-mail.

Today, Texans who want to gamble travel to Louisiana or American Indian reservations in Oklahoma.

No Comments by admin on February 22, 2011
filed in American gambling law

Montana looks to follow Florida and Pennsylvania

PREVARICATION may no longer be the name of the game for America’s legislators as old slot machines pass their sell by date. Montana has two bills in front of its legislature looking to upgrade its video laws to accomodate blackjack.

“We have had machines out there for 20 years,” said councillor Mark T Kennedy. “It is like an old Volvo. It runs well but you cannot get spares for it”.

Blackjack has been legalised in Florida and Pennsylvannia while the latter has also added in roulette to the mix

No Comments by admin on February 22, 2011
filed in American gambling law

PPF sets up education on gambling for young players

THE UK Professional Players Federation has set up four educational pilot schemes to preach the integrity of sport to young footballers and sportsmen

The initiative comes off the back of the Parry Report commissioned by Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe set up to look at potential malpractices in sport.

The message to would-be stars of the future is that legalised and licensed betting operations are inevitably going to discover any cheating while the dangers of unlicensed betting are manifest.

Currently the Rule E8 of the FA’s code of conduct, players or participants cannot directly or indirectly bet on a match or competition in which they are participating in any given season.

The FA has no statutory investigative powers in betting malpractice or match fixing – its role is to liaise with the Gambling Commission and police with regard to possible offenders whereas in Scotland and in other sports like horse racing and tennis players are prohibited from gambling at all.

No Comments by admin on October 5, 2010
filed in British gambling law

Newton’s law – the moral morale

Terry Newton playing for Bradford Bulls in 2008. RIP

The awful death of Terry Newton who apparently hung himself in a post drugs ban depression is a pressing demand that sports authorities start to act with more dignity and sagacity. Making a scapegoat of one errant player post the event is less than the best way to deal with drugs in sport.
Whatever glory an athlete may perceive they can gain through taking drugs is invariably counter balanced by the full horror of the consequences afterwards when they are discovered.
But sports authorities have a simple duty to anyone who plays under their jurisdiction. They have an obligation to spell out the facts that drugs are not tolerated as performance enhancements.
The Newton story underlines that although to most right mind competitiors such a truth is obvious, but not perhaps to all. Cheat and you are out is a simple enough edict but in mitigation to those who might have been tempted, sportsmen as much as governing bodies can be seduced by the potential riches on offer.
Fixing or rigging of sports matches by drugs or any other means has always been a murky rumour and as sport internationalises itself and takes on more money and more TV rights, the governing bodies need to understand their moral duty to everyone who plays or follows a sport under their guidance.
Newton’s death should be a reminder to all not to be complacent again…

No Comments by admin on September 27, 2010
filed in Match fixing, What we think
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Throw Pakistan out of international cricket

PAKISTAN is beset by a great many tragedies at this time of which cricket is perhaps the least important.

But allegations of match fixing seem to be so rife that the ICC has to act, quickly and ruthlessly if it is to have any credibility.

The national team has to be thrown out of cricket until it can be seen that corruption is not endemic. Already this summer Pakistan had to play a series against Australia in England because of fears for crowd safety at home. The tourists have brought with them rightly or wrongly the smell of cheating.
This is not a situation to fudge.

The responsibility lies clearly with the cricket authorities to demonstrate that the game is clean.

The media innocently proclaims that there are investigations afoot by Scotland Yard, by the anti-corruption squad and independently by the News of the World. But there is a big hole in this argument. If the bookmakers involved are illegal – what are they to be charged with, and under whose laws?

The law has no jurisdiction to intervene where there is no legality in the first place.

It is not really Pakistani cricket that needs cleaning up. It is Pakistani betting.

No Comments by admin on September 20, 2010
filed in Asian gambling
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The way to stamp out corruption in cricket is to legalise and licence gambling

THE blatant spreads betting scam operated by the Pakistani cricketers at Lords is a clear pointer that in sport the governing body needs to be a force to be reckoned with.

While gambling remains technically illegal on the sub continent, the sports authorities are powerless to prevent abuse.

The stakes are high here. The future of cricket in Pakistan is brought into question, or certainly at an international televised level. While there is a suspicion and worse of tampering with the basic ethics of competition, the institution is not devalued, it is destroyed.

The players though are victims of the system, a system that has failed them and failed in its first responsibility to cricket. In this regard the government should step in and resolve the ambiguity of gambling in Asia.

The feckless moral stance that decrees that an industry that circulates enough money to rebuild Pakistan after its awful floods should be driven underground. While it remains underground the risk of match fixing and tampering remains.

The only way to clean up cricket is by licensing responsible gambling so it can be regulated properly and the proceeds directed into the sport so that 18 year olds need not be tempted by outside interests.

No Comments by admin on August 31, 2010
filed in Asian gambling
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Retired teachers win the lottery – look out America

The mindless moral maze of the mandarins of government gambling policy was put into perspective on March 29 of this year. In a small note you may have missed the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan won the auction to take control of the U.K.’s National Lottery through a bid for operator Camelot worth £389m.

So what is good enough for retired teachers you might think ought to be good enough for the rest of us in a liberalised gambling regime. Possibly some die hard zealots will be calling for teachers to sign affidavits that they do not approve of gambling before they embark on maths and history lessons (well perhaps not history) for young people, but for the rest of it is an illuminating example of real life commerce in action.

It is a pity perhaps that more of that £389 million has not found its way to the government coffers – who after all created irt and sponsored it – but to the shareholding base of Cadbury Plc, Royal Mail Enterprises, De La Rue Plc, Fujitsu Services and Thales Electronics.

The stated intention of the new company is to open up markets in the USA – where gambling is officially illegal – where it is advising California and has now announced it is lining up a pitch for the Illinois state lottery before the end of this month. Ontario itself could be another target.

Ontario Teachers administers the pensions of 289,000 active and retired teachers across the Canadian province. In an interesting clash of interests it also administers the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey franchise aswell as having large stakes in Birmingham and Bristol airports and Northumbrian Water.

Illinois’ plan is a move away from the traditional operating model in the US, where lotteries remain under the management of state governments that issue separate contracts for a range of supporting services including marketing and systems technology. Illinois intends to issue one single management contract to a private operator for a maximum of ten years,

No Comments by admin on July 15, 2010
filed in American gambling law
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Why being risk averse can be an expensive illusion

SOCIOLOGISTS would perhaps argue that we live in a risk averse culture. We insure against things going wrong.

We insure our possessions, our house, our car, our pets. These we are told are wise and prudent things to do. We are outraged then to find that bankers, for so long that emblem of security, have been gambling with our money. That is what banks in the modern era do. And some even have the audacity to sell the insurance against risk too.

One legacy from the Labour government might even be taken to be an addiction to buying the better things in life for all, irrespective of the cost. The impact of this approach on gambling is manifest. It feeds the hypocrisy that gambling is in some way bad or perverse.

Gambling is necessarily about risk and reward and in part the rise and popularity of both the national lottery and online gambling might be taken as a reaction to the culture of conservative no-risk sterility.

We overlook the point that gambling is an effective education in life, even if only to give us graphic reminders of our own hubris. It makes us more gracious losers perhaps.

The calculation of odds and possible outcomes though is a mental discipline that we can and should apply throughout our daily lives from buying this sandwich over that one right through to purchasing a car or crossing the road. Life is risk and not always reward. It is probably an expensive illusion to believe anything else.

To argue that manifestly you will always lose gambling is also too simplistic. In a pure sense of lottery then the odds are certainly stacked against everyone, but this is partly the point and the appeal and the romance. It is also why governments like to sponsor state monopolies – because it is sheer profit. No risk.

But in card games elements of skill adjust the odds significantly. In sports betting the knowledge that Manchester United and Chelsea are more likely to be winners on the opening day of the Premier League than Newcastle and West Brom is an application of knowledge. Bet £100 on that prediction and you ought to be £39 better off after the first weekend of the season. Three successful bets like that and you are into genuine risk-free profit.

Governments like to introduce paternal legislation demanding that gamblers are not putting their livelihoods at risk – as if driving a car recklessly is any safer – demanding gaming companies support charitable addiction units. This is another version, if rather token, of moral insurance.

Gambling companies have no interest in bankrupting their customers either. They want them to be able to afford to come back next week. If governments got the taxation equations correct, they would too.

No Comments by admin on July 13, 2010
filed in What we think
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