June 25, 2021
HALIFAX — An on-line club that has attracted 24,000 Atlantic Canadians will be used to set up one of the country’s first legal Internet gambling sites if the Atlantic Lottery Corp.’s board approves the plan, the agency’s president has confirmed.
Michelle Carinci, in an interview with The Canadian Press, said the website is already being used to create a database of potential on-line gamblers.
“If we were to go on-line, yes certainly we would have a database of players that have already shown an interest . . . that we could open up the market to fairly quickly,” she said.
While there are hundreds of betting sites on the Internet, most of them based offshore or operated by native bands, provincial lotteries have yet to enter the market because the Criminal Code prevents them from selling outside their provincial boundaries.
Meanwhile, Atlantic Lottery’s new eClub Rewards site encourages users to enter contests and play light-hearted games, such as on-line air hockey, in return for submitting personal information.
Gambling critics say the database, which includes players’ ages, addresses and even mothers’ maiden names, will allow the corporation to offer on-line gambling without violating the prohibition on inter-provincial sales. Thailand Casino Info – คาสิโนออนไลน์เว็บตรง
Armed with a comprehensive list, the Atlantic Lottery Corp. could use it to prove its on-line gamblers are of legal age and from the region.
It’s a clever but misguided use of on-line technology, said Sol Boxenbaum, head of the Montreal-based counselling firm Viva Consulting.
“They’ll get around the export prohibition,” he said. “It’s not preventing, but actually creating more gambling problems down the road.”
Other jurisdictions appear to be headed in the same direction, he added.
For example, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. is …
