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03/03/2011 07:54:00
The MSAR has no law for online gaming but this gap only makes it easier for an illegal industry to thrive, executives said yesterday during the iGaming Asia congress.
iGaming Asia Congress目前正在澳门举行。
Although there is legal online gaming in MSAR（澳门特别行政区）, there is no special law on this issue, Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ, 澳门特别行政区政府博彩监察协调局) legal advisor Duarte Chagas explained. He admitted that this situation could cause “confusion”.
On the one hand, online gaming is considered informatics fraud and casino operators are not authorised to launch online games, while on the other hand, it’s possible to use the Internet to bet on local grey hound and horse races, as well as to bet on overseas football and basketball games, said Chagas.
Last January, a DICJ spokesperson told Macau Daily Times that the Government was “studying the feasibility of drafting a law for regulating online gambling”. However, “no specific timetable for the enactment of the online gambling law is set as it is still in the preliminary drafting stage,” she stressed.
“All jurisdictions in Asia should be regulated,” the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (Philippines) administrator Jose Mari Ponce said on the sidelines of the congress.
In most countries, online gaming “remains a grey area,” he bemoaned. In fact, Ponce added, “there are jurisdictions that have online gaming but are not regulated. They give no protection either to investors or to players”.
The lack of regulation “is preventing us from tapping that potential for gaming in Asia,” he said. “The current outlook is that online [gaming] is a competitor of land-based gaming. I don’t agree. I believe it’s a way to open up a wider market,” the Filipino executive stressed.
Dodging laws
Banning online gaming “will only drive people underground,” Ponce warned. The director for Asia of online gaming company Betsson, Magnus Grinneback, agrees. “You should regulate it. There is no point in trying to stop it,” he told MDTimes.
In addition, most online gaming is a cross-border business, Singapore law firm Rajah & Tann partner Lau Kok-Keng stressed. “In some case it’s very difficult to determine which jurisdiction to apply,” he said.
In the summer of 2010, a swoop coordinated by Interpol on illegal FIFA World Cup gaming in Asia including Macau and Hong Kong has resulted in the arrests of over 5,000 people. The HKSAR police seized HKD 361 million illegal betting slips, almost five times than during the last tournament in 2006.
“Enforcement usually ramps up during public interest events, such as the World Cup,” Lau confirmed, including police raids on cybercafés and coffee shops with free wireless Internet. But, “even with extra-territorial laws, the difficulties in enforcement remain,” the lawyer said.
Even the European Union is preparing a pan-European regulation framework, which will still leave room for countries to choose whether or not to separate live from online gaming, Grinneback added.
For Cagayan, to bet on this sector has proven to be a success, with around 40 companies operating in this economic zone. The yearly wins “involves anything from PHP 400 million to even 1 billion” (MOP 73.7 to 184.2 million), Ponce said.
A five percent income tax aside, one percent of all wins go straight to local authorities. “There is a specific law that states that this income should go to development projects,” the executive emphasised.
http://www.macaudailytimes.com.mo/macau/22755-Online-gaming-should-regulated.html |
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发表于 2011-3-3 10:26
