Canadian Online Gambling Plans In Trouble?
Published: Thursday, February 08, 2007 Online-Casinos.com
CANADIAN FIRST NATION'S ONLINE GAMBLING PLANS COULD BE IN TROUBLE
Alberta gaming authority probing native band's online gambling scheme
If the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission doesn't approve and benefit from it, then online gambling is not likely to happen in the Canadian province seems to be the message from authorities in the Canadian province of Alberta this week.
A northern Alberta First Nation that is offering to host online casinos is under investigation by the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission, reports the Edmonton Journal newspaper.
The commission says it will crack down on what it deems could be illegal gambling.
Alexander First Nation, just north of Edmonton, announced last October that its own, sovereign gambling commission will regulate and offer licenses to Internet gambling operators - based on the notion that the treaty band can derive powers from its own gambling law, separate from Alberta or Canadian laws.
But the AGLC's top official said he's seen no sign of online casinos or poker programs operating yet, but is watching closely.
Norm Peterson, the provincial regulator's CEO, said the Alexander band "hasn't done anything" beyond creating a website that appears to solicit interest from would-be online casinos. The band also issued a press release, heralding its rules that would allow "a safe, high quality environment for on-line gamers."
But when asked if the AGLC would shut down any online casinos that might eventually operate in connection with the nascent Alexander body, Peterson said: "Yes, it's illegal under the Criminal Code, and we would take action like any other illegal activity under the Criminal Code.
"Internet gaming, unless it's conducted by the province or licensed by the (AGLC), is illegal."
Preparing to accommodate western Canada's first online gambling operations, the Alexander band is already building a 2 300-square-metre data centre on its territory, which will host the gambling websites' computer servers (see previous Online-Casinos.com/InfoPowa reports).
Alexander's venture is a departure from other Alberta First Nation reserves' casino plans. Unlike the Enoch reserve's new casino, whose machines are owned and controlled by the AGLC, Alexander's gambling revenues would not be collected by the provincial government for the Alberta Lottery Fund. Six other first nations have applied to the provincial regulator to build casinos.
No comment was available from either the Alexander commission's director or band Chief Raymond Arcand.
But their casino-licensing scheme has a successful and legally questionable model in Quebec, where that province's Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake is one of the world's largest hosts for online gambling sites. It has operated the Kahnawake Gaming Commission since 1996.
The Alexander commission's website has copied verbatim some of Kahnawake's stated basic principles, "that the games offered are fair to the player" and "that winners are paid." The reserves' data-hosting firms are Alexander Internet Technologies and Mohawk Internet Technologies, respectively.
Loto-Quebec and Quebec's Attorney General have in the past said that online gambling based in Kahnawake is illegal. But charges have never been laid.
"Legal opinion is they shouldn't be doing that and it's a violation of the Criminal Code, but there are a few lawyers that say it's a loophole and they get around it," said Garry Smith, a gambling research specialist at the University of Alberta.
