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UK
to hold global talks on online gaming
(Mon
Jan 16, 2006)
In a move to push for the legalization of
online gaming Great
Britain published plans to hold global online gaming talks this year to
seek support for its move to regulate the fastest growing online
industry and help protect children from gaining access to the gambling
businesses' Web sites.
The push for an international meeting comes after a
booming but volatile Internet gambling market saw three big UK stock
market floats in 2005, generating multi-billion dollar revenues.
"We want to initiate a discussion about problem areas
which include protection of children, advertising, money laundering and
criminal infiltration," said Anthony Wright, a spokesman for the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport on Monday.
Britain is now home to businesses such as online gambling
operator Party-Gaming (PRTY.L:
Quote,
Profile,
Research), which in mid-2005 came to
the market as the biggest float in London in five years.
The country introduced the Gambling Act late last year as
part of a move to modernize the country's 40-year-old gambling laws via
a new regulatory framework. Aspects of the bill drew criticism from
opposition politicians and welfare groups that warned of gambling
addiction and crime amid liberalization.
Online casinos and poker rooms form a market valued at up
to $12 billion a year globally.
Online poker has surged in popularity as it pulls in a
wider audience than traditional casino gambling -- often including women
and younger players who may not have visited casinos.
Better broadband access and the convenience of playing at
home have also helped the boom.
"We became the first industrialized nation to legalize
online gaming ... The reason we introduced the act was to regulate the
new forms of gambling. We can only get so far on our own," Wright told
Reuters.
The ministry has yet to send invitation letters for the
meeting but has received positive feedback from Australia, South Africa
and New Zealand.
The U.S. Justice Department has said the laws that
prohibit interstate gambling apply to the Internet, but that has not
stopped Americans turning to offshore gambling internet sites as an
alternative.
Efforts to pass an Internet anti-gambling law that
applies specifically in the United States have stumbled in Congress
since at least the late 1990s amid a thicket of competing interests
including horse racing, dog racing, state lotteries, Indian casinos and
anti-gambling crusaders.
Writing by Gavin Haycock, reuters news
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