Casino legislation in the Irish casino news again

The Irish casino news is again full of stories about the outdated gambling laws in Ireland which allow Private members clubs to operate when casinos are illegal. The issue reached the Irish casino news at the end of October when questions were raised in the Dàil about where the promised legislation was as in September 2011 “immediate” work was supposed to be started. The only answer that Mt Kenny could provide for the Irish casino news was that “The heads of the Gambling Control Bill have not been approved yet by the Government. Therefore, it will be next year before it arrives on the table”. It seems to be unclear in the Irish casino news whether the main issue is one of taxes, social responsibility or money laundering possibilities. The issue of taxes has been in the Irish casino news many times with reference to online casinos but the private members clubs operations have no direct effect on this but with all online casino operations based overseas (even those that we recognise as “Irish” online casinos) the new regulations are going to have to be worded carefully. The idea that has been seen in the Irish casino news before is that tax should be paid by online casino operators on the income generated by Irish casino players regardless of where the online casino is based but exactly how this can work has yet to be worked out. In the meantime we have in the Irish casino news the fact that casinos are illegal in Ireland but online casino gambling is perfectly legal; the online casinos generate no income for the government but the legal ones (private members clubs) do. It may take another 2 years or even more before we can report in the Irish casino news that legislation has been passed that works and it is not only the Irish government that has the problem.