What A Switch - Going From Blocking Web Sites To The Setting Up Of A Regime Based On Regulations

There is at least one encouraging bit of news this week being reported in the publication Poker News. Apparently this publication has an article that is saying that Italy it seems, has made a very extreme turnaround with regard to do how it deals with online gambling.  Now it appears that Italian authorities, rather than blocking web sites, a practice that they set up with regard to local ISPs through the AAMS, has switched to regulating online gambling much as it is being done in the UK.

The article in the Poker News reports that Italy has developed a very interesting relationship as regards online gambling.   It was just last February that Italy made an attempt to block all IP addresses of online gaming web sites, a total of over 600.   It was just a few days after this, that the government apparently is reported as trying to develop an exclusive relationship  with an Internet poker room web site, in an attempt, apparently to participate in a share of the pot.

At this point in time, it appears that the country is opting out for regulating this industry.   Starting on January 1st, 2007, it will be legal for citizens living in Italy to gamble online. This
also opens a way for events like public sports betting and making wagers while playing in bingo parlor.

According to the legislation that is being set up, it applies to the regulation of all ‘ability based and fixed betting activities’.  It appears that the plan being used in Italy is very similar to that that was first started in the UK, at least as regards how businesses that do their operations in Italy will be regulated.  In the event that a company operates a business that has Italian partners, the government will be able to pick up a 3 percent tax on all gaming based revenues that are accumulated by the company.

The changing of directions as radicals as this demands the question, “Are web site operators going to be coming to Italy to set up their web sites?”  Let's face it, there have to be places worse than Italy in this world!

It is still not known if this move by legislators in Italy will have an affect on what legislators in the United States are doing in their determined drive to ban all online gaming.

More and more, during the recent days, it seems to be all the time more clear that the United States Senate is not likely to be passing the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act in one form or another, meaning either as a bill in and of itself, or as a part of other legislation, before the Senate itself takes its recess for elections, which is to begin at the end of the week.  Historically we have seen that lame duck sessions of Congress that occur after elections but before the new members take their seats, are reluctant to debate legislation which has been proposed by the opposition, especially when the issues involved are complex.

The way things appear now, by the first of January, 2007, people that live in Italy that want to gamble online, can do this legally.  They will be able to sit in front of their computers and play poker and other online games without violating the law.

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