Move to Bring Regulated Online Gambling to Ontario
Written by Renee K | Saturday, August 14th, 2010
North American online gamblers will be able to enjoy regulated gaming by 2012 thanks to moves by the Canadian province of Ontario to offer online gaming services to its residents. The announcement was made by the Minister of Finance, Dwight Duncan in a press conference earlier this week.
The news does not come as a surprise, as Ontario has been speaking about introducing online gambling to keep up with similar plans by other provinces. However, this is the first time that the government has set aside time to speak to the press about concrete plans and give an estimated date of when Ontarians will be able to play at online poker and casino sites.
The new sites will be operated by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, and bids will be put out to find a suitable software platform.
According to Minister Duncan, Canadians spend around $1 billion on online gambling each year, and he believes that within five years, tax revenues from online gambling could bring in $100 million to the province.
Much emphasis was put on the fact that Ontario will be providing a safe and secure gaming environment for its residents at the press conference, and the OLG spelled out ways it would keep problem and underage punters out of the system.
“The trick is to balance the need to generate revenue with the social consequences that this expansion of gambling may result in,” said the manager of a problem gambling project in Ontario Robert Murray.
The idea of introducing online gambling comes in order to ensure “the competitiveness of OLG going forward,” said Duncan.
“We know that we’re losing $400 million per year to offshore websites,” he added.
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· Written by Renee K · Filed Under Poker News · Comments Off
