--On March 7, 2006 9:13:21 AM +0100 tom <tier1@ncinet.de> wrote:
Hi Folks across the ocean..
I understand, that from an American point of view this kind of restriction looks strange and is against your act of freedom, however here in Europe gambling is a state controlled business that supports the state economy and in most European countries gambling outside state controlled casinos is simply illegal and forbidden by law.
Even in the US, this is true. Gambling in California is illegal (except indian casions, long story), because Nevada has a powerful lobby in California.
So I doubt, that the European Court would really rule agaist this.... Each country has specific laws, that othewr nations do not not understand and we all should accept that.
I wouldn't expect the court to rule against it, but, I do suspect that motivated Italians will trivially work around it.
Imagine, if kids in the US would be able to order Cannabis from Online-shops in the Netherlands (as it is leaglized there)through mail order? Would you or your legislation agree to that?
Nope, but, the hard part there is the importation of the Cannabis. Frankly, kids here CAN order it from the online shops. The hard part is getting the delivery to arrive without getting prosecuted. However, for gambling, it's a bit more complicated. Generally, the movement of money in and out of most countries is not restricted, and, what the money does while it is in the other countries is even harder to control unless the two countries in question have treaties about such things. As such, since gambling involves no physical product other than money, and, technically, the Italians are moving the money out of Italy, gambling on foreign soil, then moving their winnings back into Italy (much like they flew, for example, to Monaco, gambled in the Casinos there, then flew home with their winnings), it's quite a bit harder to enforce. I don't question the validity of the law. That's between the Italians and their government. I question the practicality of enforcing the law because the way the internet and the international economies work, it is virtually impossible to enforce this short of something like the great firewall of China (which still allows SSH through for the most part, so...). Owen -- If this message was not signed with gpg key 0FE2AA3D, it's probably a forgery.