[dropcap]O[/dropcap]nline casinos, online bookmakers and other types of online gambling sites are always on the legal edge somewhere. If you want to play some online games and place some bets, why not visit Barbadosbingo. The gambling market used to be one quite open in the past, because of the lack of local legislation governing this matter, however, it all changed over time.
Now, pretty much every developed country has its own regulations changing the way its citizens can interact with the online gambling world. In some countries, gambling is completely illegal.
The gambling situation in Norway
In Norway, there is a state-owned gambling monopoly called Norsk Tipping, which operates from 1948 and operates basically the entire gambling spectrum – sports betting, casino games, lottery, bingo etc. The idea behind the monopoly owned by the state is to funnel the money made from the gambling industry into the country’s sport and cultural sector, which is something Norsk Tipping is managing to do basically since the beginning.
In order for Norsk Tipping to maintain its position, regulations have been put in place to stop potential competitors from entering the local market and make local players unable to gamble elsewhere. In 2017, the Norwegian banks were ordered to stop processing payments to certain unauthorized online gambling sites.
Despite the effort, Norwegian players are still able to deposit their money into unauthorized online casinos and bookmakers without breaking a sweat. The issue lays in the fact that the legislation from 2017 ordered banks to block payments to specific accounts, to which the companies in question reacted by simply changing the account numbers.
According to the new legislation that has been recently proposed, the payments should be evaluated by the name of the company the accounts belong to, not simply by their numbers. This should make the companies unable to overcome these regulations by simply creating new bank accounts.
The importance of payment methods
So far, we’ve been talking about the payment methods that the players can use to deposit money into the gambling sites and withdraw them if they win anything. The ban most likely doesn’t take away all options players have to send their money to some of the international gambling sites and play with them, however, it will definitely make some of them not usable.
If the players really want to gamble outside Norsk Tipping’s monopoly, they will still be able to, but chances are that more people will choose the state-owned operator because of this. Available payment methods definitely are one of the criteria players consider when choosing an online gambling site to play at.
DNS blocking of gambling sites
Besides that, the payment blocking is not the only way Norwegian government is trying to keep people away from the international sites. The practice of DNS blocking of unauthorized gambling sites will also be allowed in Norway.
Other countries also started blocking the websites of unauthorized gambling operators, which are now not accessible by their residents. Local internet providers simply block users’ access to certain gambling sites, which makes them completely inaccessible without a VPN or some other way to avoid the censorship. These steps were met with a lot of criticism, as internet censorship is not something people want to see in this day and age.
Fortunately, Norway decided to do this differently. The implemented measures will let the user known about the fact that the website they are trying to access doesn’t operate under local authority, but will also allow them to proceed if they choose to.
Measures were also implemented to stop unauthorized gambling operators from advertising their services to people in Norway, which should also help Norsk Tipping to stay on the top of the Norwegian market.
Lack of competition
The situation on the Norwegian gambling market is very interesting. On one hand, it’s great that the local monopoly is used to funnel the nation’s gambling expenses into sports and culture.
On the other hand, the lack of competition on the Norwegian gambling market doesn’t necessarily have to be good for the people. On more open markets, players can choose from a lot of online casinos or bookmakers, while in Norway they don’t have that many options.
Competition is always good for the end customer and it’s basically non-existent in Norway. There were some efforts to make international operators able to obtain a license to operate on the Norwegian market, however, it seems that everything will stay as it is, at least for now.
