Estonia

The latest barmy action by a government as regards internet gambling has seen Estonia step up to the plate. As reported in Gambling Compliance today, the government there has instructed internet service providers to block access to "175 unlicensed internet gambling sites". Among the list are the brand names that you would know and recognise, other than that, by some quirk of fate, Paddy Power and bet365 have not fallen victim - yet.

The Durieux report commissioned by the French government estimated that there are 5,000 internet gambling websites out there. I wonder what Estonia plans to do about the other 4,825?

Surely it mist be abundantly clear to anyone with a brain that by definition, the sites that Estonia will name as the ones to block are the ones which are most likely to be licensed elsewhere, because otherwise the chances of Estonia ever having heard of them would be pretty slim.

Why is there any need for 5,000 sites to exist, other than because idiotic governments ban sites which consumers want to access, and encourage other people to set up sites to take advantage of the fact that those consumers are looking for a site which no Civil Servant has chanced upon?

So little thought is put into what the aim is that when Italy went down the same route, they temporarily blocked a chemical company's website, because they just assumed (and didn't check) that Gala Coral's website would be coral.com.

It should be funny. But it isn't.