Modernizing Gambling Laws
The extreme growth and prevalence of the international online casino gambling
industry has caught the notice of an increasing number of governments that are
now actively looking for ways to modernize internet gambling laws and enter the
21st Century with their legislation and regulations. Northern Ireland’s
government has taken a leap that many others still haven’t accepted, that
gambling laws that are decades old don’t apply to the current market place where
the internet is a global medium that has expanded beyond even the scope of what
regulators could have imagined 20 years ago. For that reason the online casinos
in Northern Ireland are getting a facelift of sorts as the government actively
works to modify and modernize the current gambling laws.
The Northern Irish online casino gambling market could actually begin to
resemble some of the gambling laws that were put in place in the UK several
years ago with the UK Gambling Act, although not that liberal most likely. Right
now there is a push for the government to give concessions for the bingo halls –
both internet bingo sites and the land bingo halls. Margaret Ritchie, the
Minister of Social Development, supports the modernization of these gambling
laws and notes that the current legislation is just too “hard to understand” and
the land and online casinos are likely confused as to the limits of their
industry because of the old language used. Old laws simply cannot account for
all of the new opportunities and products available in the online marketplace.
The government in Northern Ireland feels that modernizing the gambling laws to
deal with the real issues and concerns of the current land and online casino
gambling industry will benefit all of the citizens of Northern Ireland as well
as the internet bingo and gambling companies operating in an unclear market. |