Stefan Wallin, the culture and sport minister of Finland remarked at the beginning of this week that the government should manage an Internet poker site so as to attract players away from the poker sites outside the country; and to date the reaction is varied.

Rejecting such ideas promptly on Tuesday, Kari Paaso, Wallin's colleague in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, claimed that such internal gambling would just make gambling addicts simply even more addicted. He added that in calm the position should be monitored.

Matti Hokkanen, Ray communications director stated that RAY, as the government, considers that to keep up Finland's unique prerogative in a significant objective. Their evaluation considers the current atmosphere as non-regulated and dynamic, and that the beginning of online casino playing would threaten RAY's monopoly to a definite extent.

RAY, currently, holds unique privileges for Finland's slot machine and casino gambling.

RAY maintains the technical capabilities, Hokkanen stressed, to manage poker on the Internet. He further claimed that, inaugurating the activities would however not be simple as it would definitely accumulate further hardships to certain people gambling difficulties.

In contrast to foreign operators, the limitations put on a Finnish operator are almost the tightest imaginable. He claimed that participants would otherwise just select a gaming website from overseas. 

Veikkaus has the technological capability of establishing Internet poker, IIkka Juva the communications director of Veikkaus Oy stated. He further claims that it is a feasible concept providing that there is agreement among the government and licensees. Juva further claimed that the company has a rich record of experience and technological capabilities in these spheres.

Posted on: February 15, 2008

Add This Gambling Article To:
Del.icio.us	Digg	Google	Spurl
Furl	Simpy	Y! MyWeb

Back to February 2008's archive
Back to latest News