TORONTO—Ontario, stung by falling tax revenues from casinos across the Canadian province, wants to ban advertisements for Internet gambling sites, and hopes its plan will prompt a federal crackdown on online gaming.
Gerry Phillips, minister of government services for the province, said the ban aimed to stem the flow of young people who are gambling online . The measure, which still has to be approved by the provincial legislature, could come into force early next year.
"I don't see us moving to legalize Internet gaming -- that's not an option we're even considering," Phillips told Reuters in an interview. "But I don't underestimate the complexities of this thing down the road."
A recent study from the Responsible Gambling Council, a provincially funded support group for gambling -related problems, found that visits to online gaming sites rose four-fold between 2001 and 2005. Some 5.5 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in the province gambled online last year, the council said.
The ban would move Canada away from the British approach of regulating online gambling , and toward the U.S. approach, which leans toward an outright ban.
London-listed Sportingbet Plc and Leisure & Gaming sold their U.S. operations this month after U.S. President George W. Bush signed a law making it illegal to accept wagers over the Internet, or for credit card companies to process payments to online gambling firms.
In Britain, online gaming is legal as long as the Internet servers are located in a jurisdiction that permits it.
The decision by Ontario in part reflects falling revenues at the provincially owned Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which runs 10 commercial and charity casinos, slot machine facilities at racetracks, as well as several lotteries.
OLG says net income from the casinos has fallen 75.6 percent in the last five years and was C$124 million in 2005.
But online gambling is not the only reason -- a rising Canadian dollar and tougher security at the U.S. border have helped cut down the number of American tourists coming to casinos in Canada.
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