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All types of lotteries and other types of games that can be considered gambling on the internet are suggested to be illegal in Philippines. Internet should not be used to spend money on online gambling or to accept players wanting to put money into gambling accounts according to a politician in the Philippines. Obviously there will be exceptions made for the lotteries that are arranged by the government of the Philippines, so this will become a monopoly of some sort.

The bill to outlaw online gambling in the Philippines is presented by politician Narciso Santiago and it seems like he has taken lot of inspiration from the infamous Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that was put in place in the US back in 2006. Santiago is saying that there is a huge risk that children will start gambling on the internet if online gambling would remain legal. He also added that the fact that online casinos and online poker rooms could easily be used for money laundering is a big problem for the Philippines.

Exceptions will be made for gambling on horses if the race book taking the bets has a license. The Philippines Charity Sweepstakes Office which is a lottery run by the government will also be able to run business as usual. A lot of the critics are saying that it is ridiculous to make an exception for the government run lottery and that the same rules should apply to everyone.

The punishment for breaking the law and accepting a wager will be a fine equivalent to the amount that was accepted as a wager no matter the amount. This means that it would be pretty expensive for an online poker room to break this law if every pot played would be considered a wager placed.

The members of the EU-parliament have cast their votes regarding a bill on online gambling. In the bill it is suggested that the online gambling market should be able to be regulated by the individual countries instead of having a common set of rules for the whole European Union. This bill got 544 supporting votes and only 36 votes against it.

The bill in question was written by the Danish politician Christel Schaldemose. In the bill she is pointing out a lot of the problems with gambling in general but mostly the problems with online gambling are pointed out. The organized crime is making a lot of money from online gambling with rigged games, credit card frauds and money laundering. Gambling is also a big risk for the underage kids as it has now become possible to gamble using your mobile phone or even through your Xbox-360.

In the bill Schaldemose also proposes a couple of methods that can be used to limit the losses that can be made online by people with a gambling problem. It is also suggested that they need to look further in to the possibilities of being able to limit the amount of money that people can lose on gambling. It is suggested that people would only be able to deposit at online gambling sites using a pre paid card that can only be bought in a store. In this way you would not be able to sit at home drunk and alone and decide to gamble away all your savings.

In this bill it is also suggested that the individual countries would be allowed to decide over their own gambling market.

The critics are saying that instead of protecting the individuals this bill is there to protect the monopoly that many of the countries have set in place. Sweden, Italy and Norway are some of the countries who have their gambling business run by the government. The critics are giving the UK as an example of a liberal and non regulated market where the individual gamblers still are protected and the gambling companies contribute towards creating awareness about problem gambling.

Surely this will not be the end of this story but it is a setback for those of us who really want an open market for online gambling with clear rules and guidelines within the EU.