The Australian federal government formally proposed to the states and territories today its recommendation for a one-year moratorium on Internet gaming. The states rejected the plan, and now the federal government is threatening to pull out the big guns.
The idea, brought to the table during a meeting of gaming ministers, calls for a moratorium to see whether its technically possible to ban Net betting by using Internet filters and blocking. As expected, however, the states wouldn't budge, and now the federal government has threatened to override the states with its own legislation for a moratorium and possibly even prohibition.
The knock on prohibition has consistently been that such a policy couldn't be enforced, but Communications Minister Richard Alston disagrees. Alton told the ABC News, "In gambling to date we are talking about less than a thousand and the technical presentation we had today suggested it is certainly feasible to identify a list of black sites and then block those sites."