Eager players crash B.C. gambling site

Tom Fletcher - BC Local News Published: July 16, 2010 9:00 AM

VICTORIA – Website glitches rather than windfall revenues marked the first day of B.C.'s venture into regulated online gambling. The B.C. Lottery Corporation's new portal PlayNow.com crashed on opening day of the experiment and remained offline overnight and into Friday morning. A BCLC spokesperson said the outage was related to high traffic generated by the newly expanded betting limit and games. With new casino games and a limit bumped up to $9,999, the site racked up 150 new registrants and a surge of interest from the 135,000 people already registered to play BCLC lotteries and games online. Technicians added new hardware Friday to handle the traffic and expected to have it back up later in the day.

The B.C. government caused an uproar when it revealed this spring that it would be the first jurisdiction in North America to offer an authorized alternative to unregulated Internet casinos. Registered B.C. residents can bet up to $9,999 on casino games at the B.C. Lottery Corp. website, which also provides online access to lottery games and numbers. Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman says B.C. residents are now spending $100 million a year on Internet gambling sites, and he makes no apologies for letting the lottery corporation invest $325 million this year to protect its $1 billion revenue stream from lotteries and casinos. The government has seen gambling in B.C. transform in recent years, with bingo halls giving way to Las Vegas-style slots and table games to televised poker tournaments and now to online casinos.

NDP social development critic Shane Simpson noted the government's sudden entry into online gambling came in the same budget that cuts gambling enforcement and addiction treatment by 10 per cent. The result, the opposition argues, is that the government is targeting chronic gamblers for more revenue. "Over 15,000 British Columbians identified by the B.C. Medical Association as being problem gamblers," Simpson said. "Expert after expert stating that Internet gaming is the most risky form of gambling for people who have a problem and particularly for young people." Coleman takes a similar approach to BCLC as the B.C. Liberal government does with BC Ferries, letting its appointed board act as a private-sector company would. "This is a $2 billion corporation which has asked to modernize its equipment and upgrade its stock from time to time," Coleman told the legislature in March. "In actual fact, any business would make an investment in its inventory and its electronic network at any given time. That's why it's there." Bingo and casino scandals derailed the terms of former NDP premiers Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark, and then-opposition leader Gordon Campbell campaigned on lurid warnings of social decay caused by expanded gambling. Kamloops MLA Kevin Krueger, who used to warn of women and children dying at the hands of abusive gambling addicts, is now in charge of a project to finance a new roof for B.C. Place stadium with a destination casino in downtown Vancouver.