Home » OCW News » February 2010 » Norway Takes Lead from U.S. Online Gambling Ban

Norway Takes Lead from U.S. Online Gambling Ban

Date published: 25 February 2010

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Amidst the recent news that the world's two leading credit card issuers MasterCard and Visa have stopped processing online gambling payments for Americans, Norway has just dropped a bombshell of its own in the form of a law that is aimed at clamping down on 'unauthorized' online gambling payments.

As per Norway's Payment Act, which was recently passed into law, it is now illegal for Norwegian financial service providers to process payments to non-licensed online gambling websites. In other words, payments to and from online gambling sites that are not licensed and thus regulated by the Norwegian government.

While the move will no doubt be seen as a big slap in the face for many of the world's biggest online gambling operations which are not licensed in the Scandinavian country, at least under the law Norwegian online gambling fans are still free to gamble online as long as it is via 'state approved' online gambling websites.

The Payment Act was given the seal of approval by Norway's Royal family and is seen by the government as a necessary move to keep taxable online gambling revenues within Norway, and to 'protect' its online gamblers against the many offshore online gambling operations over which it has no control or jurisdiction.

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The Norwegian law is similar to the U.S. Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which was passed by Congress in October 2006 and signed into law by the President not long afterwards. UIGEA, which is set to come into effect on June 1 this year, also targets the nation's financial service providers.

However, unlike the United States which is seeking to ban online gambling outright, at least Norway has recognized that a complete ban will not prevent gamblers from gambling online. But that will not stop Norway's move from being criticized by the European Commission for flouting online gambling free trade agreements.

It's no secret that the European Union is very battle-scarred from its constant fight to convince EU member states to follow its prescribed online gambling free trade agreement guidelines. And its cause was not helped when the European Court of Justice recently gave Portugal the go ahead to retain its gambling monopoly.