The B.C. Lottery Corp. is defending its decision to introduce casino games online that could generate up to $100 million a year in revenue by 2014. Games like blackjack, roulette and poker will be available by next March on the corporation's PlayNow website, according to a release issued Thursday.The corporation wants to tap into the estimated $87 million that British Columbians already spend on unregulated offshore gaming websites."Rather than it all going offshore to places like Antigua, there's an opportunity to keep it here in British Columbia," corporation CEO Michael Graydon told CBC News.
Gaming Minister Rich Coleman, once a fierce opponent of online gambling, said he approved the huge spike in betting limits to try to keep online gamblers closer to home in the cutthroat global market of Internet gambling."They [B.C. Lotteries] are competing against sites that are offshore and that are not well regulated," Coleman said yesterday."I felt that if there were more people in British Columbia that were making the choice to go offshore into unregulated markets that it would be better for them if they were actually in a regulated market."
Coleman had a very different opinion on the matter back when he was solicitor-general and an anti-gambling crusader. "Illegal gaming and Internet gaming -- those are things we fight to stamp out," he said in 2003. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, eh, Rich?
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