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UK Institutes Age Checks for Online Casinos

The United Kingdom's Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, is hosting a summit in October which will consolidate a new Code of Practice for online casinos headquartered in Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Calicos Island, Antigua and Costa Rica.

The Code is designed to help target illegal or illicit online gambling practices in preparation for the implementation of the new United Kingdom Gambling Act.

The British government intends to invite the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, as well as government representatives from all the main offshore gaming and online casinos headquarters to discussion the possibility of provisions such as age verification checks.

The culture secretary said that she knows it will not be easy or straightforward to put together an agreement, but hopes that movers and shakers in the online casinos industry understand the importance of such restrictions for their own gambling benefit.

It is clear that the attempt by Britain to implement such restrictions on the online casinos industry will not be easy. It will not be a simple task in convincing the countries where online casinos are headquartered to risk lucrative sources of revenue by imposing much tighter regulations.

Last year's Gambling Act set up a legal framework for online casinos to be based onshore in the UK from September 2007 allowing licensed UK-based sites to offer several online casino games, such as poker. Jowell said that the Gambling Act plans to implement these types of restrictions on online casinos based off-shore.