BC Lottery's Online Casino Overwhelmed On Day One

With British Columbia's population spending $100-million on online gambling websites every year, the government decided to build it's own "legal" site and keep the money at home where it could be used for "health care, higher education and improved infrastructure." The government did not however anticipate the overwhelming interest that there was in a home grown site and was forced to shut it down for several hours for maintenance. 


While typing this I attempted to view the site and was met with the following:

PlayNow.com is Currently Unavailable

We are experiencing technical difficulties and will have the matter corrected shortly.

We regret any inconvenience this may cause you.

If you require more assistance, please contact Consumer Services at consumerservices@bclc.com or 1-866-815-0222.

Thank you for your patience.

PlayNow.com is reportedly North America's only government sanctioned online gambling site, though I think that is open to interpretation. I fully expect that I would have been blocked from attempting to play on the site as I reside outside of the province.  

Oline Gambling Players Have Money Frozen By Courts

Prosecutors in the US have gone to the courts to freeze the accounts of several payment processing companies that work with off shore gambling sites. The move has left millions of dollars payable to tens of thousands of players in accessible. Since the prosecutors have no jurisdiction over the gambling sites themselves, the new tactic is to cut off the cash by going after the companies that do operate within the US, the transaction processors. The effect is that it has become harder and harder for players to send payments or receive winnings, and that puts a clamp on the gaming sites and places doubt in the mind of players. “Now, you not only have to find a way to get money to a place you trust and that’s going to be honest, you have to get money back and hope it doesn’t get seized,” says I. Nelson Rose, a gambling law expert at Whittier Law School.

Source: NY Times Bits blog

Lottery Under Fire For Free Music Download Plan

The provincial lottery corporation in British Columbia (BCLC) is drawing fire from politicians and social activists over a plan that would offer free music downloads to some online gambling players. The scheme seems aimed squarely at young adults and is being seen as a ploy to hook them early. “It does sound like it would be something that would attract the college and university-aged student,” Amanda McCormick, who wrote the report on online gambling for the B.C. Centre for Social Responsibility said. “They are the ones who are probably more likely to be online and be familiar using these downloading programs. So I would think it would definitely encourage those people to visit the site.” While BCLC spokesman Trevor Miller says "It's a bit of a much ado about nothing,” and “We think the idea of having music downloads offers our players another form of excitement. Music is a form of entertainment, as is gaming. We think they kind of go hand in hand. It's something that will give our players a little more excitement to their online experience.” Globe and Mail story.