Every morning, every online gambler wakes up with the hope they won in one of their sports bets. Life for an online gambler, for example Steve is made up of waking early in the morning and jumping straight to their computers. Life is good for Steve on the days he manages to score some winnings after wagering a few hundred dollars on two NBA games and he wins on both of these games. He won the bets on San Antonio Spurs and the hometown Raptors. He loyally carries out research on every game, both in the morning and in the evening. However, Steve considers all these as normal; to him it is not an addiction but a way of earning extra profit. He also adds that his friends also engage in sports betting.
Funny enough most of these sports betting accounts are not in existence in Canada but are in areas such as Antigua, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man or the United Kingdom. These places are known to entice gamblers who are based in countries where sports betting is illegal, making all these quite suspicious. Since the start of internet gambling sites more than twenty years ago, Canadian authorities have not put any interest in the multi-billion-dollar project thus only allow its operation in secluded areas where it is less likely to take place. Michael Lipton who is a gaming law practitioner with Dickinson Wright in Toronto argues that the reason where sports gambling sites consider Canada as a grey area is the fact that there have been no prosecutions in the area.
The major question remains unanswered as to why the Canadian government ignores online sports betting. Lawyer Chad Finkelstein says that the reason is that the provinces in Canada that practice gambling are mostly grey zone areas and the gaming constitution laws have never been updated since the 1960s. These laws do not ban gambling in those offshore areas and if the Canadian government stopped their operation, the online bookmakers would sue them. Sports betting have also become easy as the online sports betters can deposit and withdraw their funds directly from their homes. These transactions openly happen in very big and recognized Canadian banks. Sports’ betting is even a major contributor of profits to most of these banks.
In Canada players are able to wager up to $4 billion annually though the sports books located in Europe or in other places of the world. This is according to the vice president of the Canadian Gaming Association, Paul Burns.Lipton agrees that sports betting could be a huge contributor of revenues for the Canadian government.
This article is published in: Sports Betting
Tags: CGA, Legislation, online gambling
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