It is unfortunate that Norway is considering following in the US’ ill-advised footsteps by contemplating the implementation of its own version of the US’ notorious Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

Politicians who feel this is a solution to help problem gambling in their country may want to take note of the US’ current WTO problems in which it faces mega-billions in compensation payouts as a result of its UIGEA policy.  Norway is a WTO member too and could face similar action by countries whose gaming operators will be disadvantaged by passing a similar law to UIGEA.

Online bingo operators and online bingo halls will be aware that such a law targets the payment system by which customers forward money to online gaming operators.  Hence, it effectively curtails access to a market protected by such a law and therefore can be argued to constitute a trade barrier – a no-no according to WTO agreements.

Bingo online industry observers know that the passing of such a law in Norway is a thinly veiled attempt at protecting that country’s state-run gambling monopoly and has little to do with the lofty ideals of trying to curb online problem gambling.
The irony of instituting such a law is that it has be adequately demonstrated that the, in the case of the US, passing UIGEA has effectively denied that government billions in potential tax revenues that would otherwise have been generated by a regulated online gaming industry.  Is Norway really prepared to see huge losses in potential tax revenues to protect its archaic state-run monopoly?

Written by John Witherspoon – Become a part of a great online bingo community. Play online bingo chat games at BingoStreet.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 at 3:53 am and is filed under Online Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.