Irish Gambling Restrictions Coming Soon

September 28, 2011 | News Category: Gaming Law

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There will soon be some changes taking place in Ireland as far as online gambling is concerned. The Irish online gambling regulations are being updated, and look as if they will be adopted in the near future. The Justice Minister, Alan Shatter has revealed the proposed online gambling legislation in an interview that took place last weekend.

There will be restrictions that will be placed on online gambling advertisements. The restrictions will be placed on those advertisements that portray online gambling as a trendy pastime.

Credit cards will be allowed to be used to place wagers online, however, there will be time delays imposed on credit cards that are used to place wagers on online gambling sites.

When new players register with online gambling sites, they will need to go through an age verification process in order to validate their age. There will also be an option to register for PIN numbers in order to validate that they are of eligible gambling age.

Online casinos and other online gambling sites will also have to perform "due diligence checks" on their online casino customers. This is likely to cause delays before players may begin their online gambling experience. The delays could be as long as 12 hours from the time that a player registers with the online casino until they are able to play in the online casino.

Those online casinos and other online gambling sites that attempt to offer unlicensed online gambling operations will find themselves on the wrong site of the Irish law, and will be subject to large fines, and may also have to face some prison time. It will not pay for operators to attempt to offer illegal online gambling sites in Ireland. This law will protect both the players and the online gambling sites that have been licensed and are offering the Irish players legal online gambling sites.

It is likely that the proposed online gambling changes will begin to be put into effect in 2012, should the laws be passed by the Irish government. At this time, there are no definite plans as to how the new Irish online gambling regulations will be enforced.

Minister Alan Shatter also announced that online gambling sites in Ireland will also have to pay taxes when the new laws are brought in.

When commenting on the proposed legislation, he said: "The Exchequer is also being short-changed because of the absence of a taxation regime for online and other forms of remote gambling."