Maltese Online Casino Sites To Be Blockaded
Published: Thursday, February 23, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
MALTESE ONLINE CASINO SITES TO BE BLOCKADED BY NEW ITALIAN DECREES
684 online casino and sportsbetting sites to be blocked by Italian ISPs - but
counter moves are in progress
Maltese officials were clearly disturbed this week as the Italian bid to ban online
casino and sportsbook gambling sites started to move into gear with plans to block
684 internet sites, among them Maltese licensed companies despite the fellow European
Community status of the island.
It now seems that the Italians are using the fraudulent acquisition of passwords
and credit card details - commonly known as phishing - as one of their rationales
for blocking online casino ans sportsbetting sites from the end of this week.
The Italian state plans to introduce the ban on Friday, blocking 684 online gambling
sites through ISPs despite the lack of hard evidence to suggest a connection.
All 100 + online casino and sportsbook gaming sites licensed in Malta are included
in the list, which was put into force following Italy’s 2006 Budget, to block
all online casomp gaming sites which are not licensed in Italy. The law stipulates
that ISPs in Italy should block the websites, otherwise they will be subjected
to heavy fines.
The Italians have threatened ISPs with a daily fine of EUR180,000 in a unilateral
move that has been described as a case of protectionism.
According to the UK's Financial Times, the legal director of gaming company Betfair,
which has a Maltese licence, said that Italy’s move had unified the British
gambling heavyweights to take legal action, leading to the hiring of specialist
legal firm Freshfields.
The Maltese Lotteries and Gaming Authority (LGA) is taking a waiting posture,
saying that there are “a number of unclear factors” which the Italian
regulatory body, the AAMS, needs to clarify before it will involve itself in the
dispute, although it will be taking steps to ensure Maltese licensees are not
affected by the law.
LGA spokesmen said that it has information that the list of banned websites will
be blocked by an access list on ISP routers, although when this was tested last
week “...two major ADSL networks in Italy went down”. Subsequent reports
claimed that the blockading of Maltese sites would probably take place in Milan,
through which all Malta’s international IP traffic passes.
Another report suggested this would constitute a problem difficult to resolve
that might require tunnelling through a foreign proxy or VPN tunnel outside Malta.
There were also reports that the LGA is seeking to lease a server in London Docklands
or Vienna.
The LGA has apparently revealed that a website will soon appear with links to
all licensees. Each link will go through a "web anonymiser" so the IP
address is different from the original website. It instructed each ISP to make
a number of IP addresses available as it is possible the anonymous proxy will
also be blocked.
