Northern Ireland Looks to Modernize Gambling Laws

The government in Northern Ireland accepts that laws over twenty years old are insufficient to apply to modern online gambling, and looks to modify them.

Northern Ireland politicians are saying the country's gambling laws are written for a different era, and need to be reconfigured to deal with modern technology and culture. Unlike the US and some other countries, Northern Ireland leaders admit that laws written before the current gambling boom and the advent of the Internet do not adequately address the situation, and need to be modified.

The country's Minister of Social Development, Margaret Ritchie, said in a statement that existing laws are "not robust enough to deal with modern gambling."

“Current legislation is old, inflexible and hard to understand and the gambling market has moved on," continued Ritchie, displaying a realism not found among many US lawmakers. "There are new products and new ways of gambling that the current law never envisaged."

Among the first changes expected is the granting of permission to bingo halls to open on Sundays for business. Also, online bingo companies may receive rules under which they may advertise on television, a practice currently forbidden.

Laws in Northern Ireland on gambling were written in 1985, yet are admittedly out of date; in comparison, the US Department of Justice tries to use the 1961 Wire Act as pertaining to online gambling.

“It is in everyone’s interests that the gambling industry is regulated effectively," concluded Ritchie.