Swedish authorities have ruled against an internet café whose computers were used to play at online casino sites. Although both the country administrative board and the administrative court ruled in favor of the café, a court of appeals in Jonkoping ruled against the internet café and it will need a special permit in order to allow customers to play at online casino sites. The Swedish court argued that once a PC is used for online casino gambling it is regards as any other gambling machine and will need a permit.
The Swedish court ruled that if someone uses a PC to play games with a financial stake on them, basically all the games at online casino sites, then that PC is considered to be a gambling machine and needs a special gambling permit to operate. This precedence might have a serious impact on the online casino gambling industry, with more countries adopting the Swedish approach. There are many Internet cafes where players come to gamble at online casino sites, and if those places are closed then many online gamblers will have no place to play.
Although Sweden is following the same strict codes of most European countries, Sweden has launched its first state-run online casino poker site late March with an estimated number of 200,000 Swedish players playing on the net. These online casino players will have a hard time finding places to gamble online from when Internet cafes across Sweden start keeping an eye on their customers' online habits. |
