Vietnam Inquiry
Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has ordered a swift police inquiry into whether state funds were used by senior transportation official Bui Tien Dung, who was discovered to have wagered about US$1.8 million on top European soccer matches with a gambling ring that was busted last month. Police will try to determine whether any of the money came from Dung's department, which manages major infrastructure projects including the $200 million Bai Chay bridge. Investigators believe the network was composed of about 60 bettors, 22 of whom were police officers, including the man who is believed to have acted as the bookie. The group is also suspected to be behind a match-fixing scandal involving the Vietnamese national soccer team at the recent Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines last year. Four members of the Vietnamese team were arrested and three others are under investigation for allegedly accepting $82,000 to fix a game against Myanmar.
Why Veikkaus Won't Offer Poker
Ilkka Juva, communications director for Finnish gaming company Veikkaus Oy, wrote and distributed an article recently to address the question "Why [Veikkaus] does not respond to growing demand by launching Internet poker?" Juva's simple answer: "Veikkaus does not have the legal right to operate poker games." He goes on to explain that Finland's government hold's the exclusive right to organize gaming in the country, and that it has divided the right to do that among three operators, which means that the right to operate one particular type of game is possessed by only one operator at a time. "According to the Lotteries Act, the right to operate poker belongs to the Finnish Slot Machine Association RAY, and not to Veikkaus," stated Juva.
Meanwhile, Finland's neighbor Sweden is the only European member state proceeding with a plan to let one of its state-owned gambling providers take advantage of the growing demand for Internet poker. At the end of November 2005, the Swedish government awarded domestic gaming and lotteries operator Svenska Spel a license to operate poker over the Internet for a two-year trial period. The prime motivation seems to be a desire to redirect money going to foreign gambling providers back into the domestic economy.
Czech Finance Ministry Examines Options
Czech Republic Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka in November ordered the Supreme State Attorney's Office to begin an investigation into online gambling. Czech Business Weekly reports that betting is not legal in the Czech Republic, but foreign companies offering remote services have taken control of over 10 percent of the Czech betting market, which is dominated by five major domestic betting companies doing most of their business through retail shops--Tipsport, Fortuna, Chance, Sazka and Synot Tip. The Finance Ministry has asked the foreign firms to leave the market but to no avail, hence the initiation of an investigation into online betting. According to Czech Business Weekly, "When the investigation is complete, online gambling providers will either receive authorization to do their business here, or the issue will be sent to the courts."
A new lottery law to be worked on in Parliament in the first half of 2006, meanwhile, could allow Czech betting firms to begin offering their services online, especially if the Finance Ministry's investigation determines it to be advisable.
Speculation in Thailand
Veerasek Kowsuwan, the deputy leader of the Chart Thai Party, has gone public with allegations that Deputy Finance Minister Varathep Ratanakorn has plans to introduce a bill to Parliament that would expand legal gambling and establish a National Office for Gaming that would oversee all gambling in the country. Veerasek claims he discovered the plan in a document that listed legislative plans from last year until 2008. The director of the national lottery office has acknowledged that such a plan exists, and a research center at Chulalongkorn University has been enlisted to conduct a feasibility study on legalizing gambling, but Varathep insists there is no plan.
US Passes an Annoying Law
A new U.S. law makes it a federal crime for anyone to annoy someone over the Internet without disclosing his identity. Called "Preventing Cyberstalking," the law appears as Section 113 of the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., and the section's other sponsors apparently slipped it into the larger bill to make it politically unfeasible for other legislators to oppose it.
The relevant language of the section reads, "Whoever . . . utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet . . . without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person… who receives the communications . . . shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
The law raises several Freedom of Speech questions.
Assuming Spread Betting Regulatory Responsibilities
The European Union's Market in Financial Investments Directive, which becomes law in November 2007, will make the domestic regulators in EU member states responsible for the regulation of spread betting on share prices and currency exchange rates. The directive will help clarify matters in Ireland, where spread betting regulation remains a bit of a gray area. The Irish government does not consider spread betting an investment activity, so some spread betting operators have bookmakers' licenses and report to Customs and Excise while others apply the standards established in the United Kingdom.
WTO Gambling Dispute Sets GATS Precedents
The Internet has given rise to an increase in electronic cross-border delivery of goods and services to which the World Trade Organization has not yet caught up. This is the topic of a report called "Cross-Border Trade in Services and the GATS: Lessons from the WTO US-Internet Gambling Case," written by Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, visiting fellow of the Institute for International Economics. Wunsch-Vincent's report analyzes the conclusions of the WTO's ruling on the gambling dispute between the United States and Antigua to show the advancements the WTO has made in electronic matters and to shed light on implications for pending GATS negotiations.
The report can be viewed online at: http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/wunsch1205.pdf.
Soccer Betting Shops Flourish in Zimbabwe
ZimBet, a chain of betting shops in Zimbabwe, has had some initial success operating a game that enables punters to either bet on the correct score of a single soccer match or go for the jackpot by correctly predicting the score of six matches. The shops accept betting on both Zimbabwe's premier league and English Premiership matches, and Zimbet expanded from 12 outlets to 27 in first month of operation. Half of the pooled money wagered is distributed as winnings, while the rest pays operating costs, taxes and royalties to soccer. ZimBet hopes to expand to other countries soon, likely Mozambique or Botswana.