Quebec Government Eyeing Online Poker RegulationCanadian Players Will Likely See New, Regulated Poker Site in 2010 |
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The Quebec government has approved the province’s lottery commission to establish online poker and sports betting sites this year.
“I believe this to be an efficient way of fighting the underground economy,” said Quebec’s finance minister, Raymond Bachand. “Our citizens are not (currently) protected, and the money goes to illegal channels.”
The new online poker site would be conducted by the gaming company Loto-Quebec, along with the BC and Atlantic Lottery Corporations. It will only be accessible to residents within the province’s borders; however, players on the site will be allowed to play against other players in “other participating jurisdictions,” according to The Gazette newspaper.
Loto-Quebec says that its new site will contain age-verification methods to ensure that underage citizens are not able to play, as well as self-exclusion options, deposit limits, and additional methods that could entirely ban problem gamblers.
“(Many) online gambling sites obviously do not offer an assistance program for vulnerable players,” said Loto-Quebec president and CEO Alain Cousineau. “(This) leaves the state to pick up the costs of problem online gambling without reaping any benefits.”
The so-called benefits are expected to be sizable. In the next three years, the Quebec government hopes to bring in at least $50 million through this new venture. Government officials said that a regulated online poker site was more practical than trying to ban and cast out all existing gaming sites.
Hundreds of online gambling sites are already available to Canadian players, including many which are regulated by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. The Kahnawake Mohawk reserve is located on Montreal’s South Shore and its gaming commission currently regulates a number of major online poker sites, including Bodog, UB, and Absolute Poker.
It’s no secret that Loto-Quebec wants to pull from these companies’ player bases in the hopes that Canadian citizens would rather play on a gaming site regulated by their own government. Cousineau specifically mentioned how successful Swedish’s approved online poker site was — right from the start.
“In the first four hours when the Swedish poker got online, they got 20 percent of the market,” said Cousineau.
The move to set up a government-approved poker site does not come without detractors, of course. Anti-gambling and public health organizations have decried the recent news, claiming that this new project will create more problem gamblers.
“Any new type of gambling always attracts new people, especially now when it’s a hidden one that you can do in the den in your pajamas while your spouse is fast asleep,” a local anti-gambling advocate, Sol Boxenbaum, told CTV Montreal, a Quebec television station.
However, Quebec officials say they are proceeding with the plan to establish an online poker site by this fall. The government will also establish a committee to study the impact that these gambling sites have on its citizens.
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