Cyprus, New Jersey & Harrah's: APCW Perspectives Weekly 11 March 2011

[APCW]

This week, J Todd covers online gaming news from Cyprus and New Jersey. He also interviews Jan Jones of Harrah's about the future of our industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJKnQgHmTZE

[alexcruncha]

I live in Cyprus and just wanted to let people know that the online gaming bill hasnt been passed here yet it is just in discussion... it is a 'draft' bill and there are many people against it. And being Cyprus with so much red tape this thing is likely to take a long time to be passed.

What people may find interesting is that in Cyprus within the last couple of years so called 'Internet casinos' opened up in what seems like every street in all the major cities. They are cash for cash Internet gambling shops just like Internet cafes. This bill is half aimed at closing down these shops as well as traditional online gambling from the home PC with credit cards. In Cyprus there are hundreds and hundreds of these Internet casino shops and they are all running business as usual. ...and when I say Internet casino they offer Poker, Casino games, Bingo and there are also Sports Betting shops too. The term 'Internet Casino' is just what we refer to these shops as.

In Cyprus traditional land based casinos have never been legal (well not since I can remember) and there has been a loophole in the law that doesnt prohibit people playing on remote gaming casinos... its a grey area that has been exploited as the Cypriots love to gamble. It is of-course hugely hypocritical of the Cyprus government to put this bill forward since the Cyprus government makes money from selling scratch-cards to the public, while most other forms of gambling is illegal. Their is also more to this than meets the eye as a large organisation has been granted the rights to set-up land based lottery and sports betting shops all over Cyprus and no one in the government is against that. It is as if the organisation in question has a lot of power in the government and wants to rid the competition that didn't used to exist.

I personally think that the Cyprus government should follow suit with the more forward thinking countries like the UK, where they regulate online gaming and control it better. I think one of the main problems is that the Cyprus government feels like they have no control and no way to collect taxes from this industry and also that they simply don't understand it.

Prohibition never worked in the 1920's, why should it now?