Piggs Peak vs Gauteng Gambling Board: the showdown looms

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Online casinos are temporarily back in business after appealing a High Court ruling that banned online gambling in South Africa. In the Gauteng Gambling Board, however, they have a tough opponent; one that is unlikely to relent.  By MANDY DE WAAL.

While the appeal process is still at the early stage, the Gauteng Gambling Board is already investigating the right to seize all gains from the time of Judge Neil Tuchten’s decision on 20 August 2010, should the online casino’s appeal fail. And the Gambling Board’s target isn’t just online casinos, but everyone who helps facilitate online gambling, including banks, advertisers and internet service providers (ISPs).

“It is business as usual” said a defiant Piggs Peak online casino after winning the right to appeal what the Gauteng Gambling Board called a “ground-breaking ruling”. Judge Tuchten decreed online gambling illegal in South Africa, regardless of whether the servers of gambling companies were located outside of this country. The ruling affects not only Piggs Peak, but all online gambling, including the likes of Silver Sands online casino and African Palace. However, the ruling excludes sports betting.

Directly after the ruling Piggs Peak and Silver Sands shut shop, but only for as long as it took Piggs Peak to seek leave to appeal. The appeal realised a suspension of the gambling ban and enabled web casino operations to continue. Silver Sands and Piggs Peak reopened almost immediately, while African Palace took a more cautious stance. A notice on African Palace’s site stated that the online casino “decided to permanently suspend all casino activities at African Palace Casino until the highest court in South Africa makes a final decision regarding the legality of online gambling in South Africa for South African players.”

“The ruling was against us, but leave to appeal was granted and it is business as usual until the appeal is finalised,” said Dia Wilson, marketing manager of Piggs Peak Casino. Wilson refused to say how many players used the online gambling service, but said the casino’s market covered the rand common monetary area. “Basically you are looking at South Africa, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho,” she said.

The Gauteng Gambling Board’s chief operating officer Edward Lalumbe said casinos like Piggs Peak and Silver Sands were taking a gamble and could face forfeiture of all the gains made since 20 August 2010. “It is not the end of the day. When the online casinos have exhausted their rights, we will appeal for forfeiture and will look to seize whatever gains they collected in the period after the original ruling. We can’t stop them at this stage, but they will be taking the risk of following the advice of their lawyers.”

Lalumbe said the board would obtain legal advice and would target all players in the facilitation of online gambling. “Whoever benefits from the proceeds of crime or is in some way involved in the provision of online gambling will be made to return the proceeds they have received from the activity if it is found that online gambling is illegal. We know what funds are at play, the money that gets moved by banks. We know who advertises and where they advertise, and we are following who gets what revenues.”

The board is of the opinion that anyone who helps facilitate an illegal transaction could be liable for a forfeiture claim. “It is basically like murder. Anyone who removed the body can be held accountable. In terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, all people who make profits from an illegal activity can be required to return the profits of that illegal activity. We may see a lot of parties whose assets get frozen,” said Lalumbe. He added that if ISPs were aware that the content traversing their networks was illegal and they continued to allow this activity, they too may be deemed to be involved in an illegal activity.

Digital media lawyer Paul Jacobson said the gambling board was reaching in terms of Internet service providers and was trying to “outsource the board’s responsibility” to ISPs. “The judgment itself doesn’t refer to service providers at all. The gambling board is trying to use the judgment as an authority to include ISPs on the assumption that the ISP is facilitating and, therefore, involved in an illegal activity.”

Jacobson said the gambling board shouldn’t try to get ISPs to police online gambling. “The ECT Act has a provision that shields ISPs from liability in cases like this. ISPs shouldn’t have to actively police their network to see who is using their network or what’s going on across their network. ISPs act as mere conduits for data and in terms of the ECT Act must be hands-off to claim protection under the act.”

The situation was a slippery slope that could see all sorts of demands made on ISPs if enforced, said Jacobson, who added: “Today it is online gambling that needs to be stopped by ISPs and tomorrow it’s the recording industry authorities who want the same kind of intervention. The recording industry of SA tried this a little while back, but the ISPs told them to forget it.”

You can bet that many local advertising agencies and media owners will be watching the outcome of the appeal very closely. Piggs Peak, Silver Sands and African Palace are aggressive advertisers as anyone who has been irritated by the high frequency of those awful Dolph Lundgren adverts on DStv can attest to. Earlier the agencies and media houses were asked to pull advertising material by the Gauteng Gambling Board who warned that stiff penalties would apply to those who ignored the warning.

Fin24 quoted the board’s head of legal services, Lucky Lukhwareni who said companies involved in the advertising of online gambling would also face the law and, if found guilty, could be fined up to R10 million or 10 years in jail or both.

A date has yet to be set for the appeal which will be heard in the Bloemfontein Appeals Court, and as the showdown looms, online gambling addiction is on the increase according to experts. “We are aware that online gambling is a growing problem. It currently constitutes a small percentage of the calls we receive from problem gamblers, but this is only because of the low number of computers available to gamblers in this country. As the Internet becomes more popular and as gambling spreads to mobile devices we will see an increase in addiction rates,” said Peter Collins, executive director of the National Responsible Gambling Programme.

Set up after the gambling industry was legislated locally, the NRGP oversees education on and treatment for gambling addiction. It runs a gambling counselling line on 0800 006 008, as well as in-patient and out-patient treatment centres across the country. NRGP does research on the extent of gambling addiction in the country and Collins said 4% of problem gambling calls related to online gaming. He said the industry was earning more than R500 million a year and was growing rapidly.

“The big factor with online gambling is convenience. You can gamble online any time of the day or night without much effort, in fact you can pretty much gamble from your bed. This makes it hugely problematic. Another issue is the fact that online gambling operates outside of the law.” Collins called for online gambling to be legalised so that it could better be regulated. “If the online industry was regulated, we could manage responsible gambling programmes because there is software that enables this for online gambling. Outlawing digital gambling doesn’t make it go away, it just makes it harder to police and impossible to regulate.”

This was made abundantly clear when The Daily Maverick asked Piggs Peak online casino what programmes they were involved in to promote responsible gambling and to help with online gaming addiction. “We have a responsible gambling system in place, but it is monitored internally,” said Wilson. “We are part of ECOGRA. I am not sure of what that stands for or what the URL is, but you can find it if you Google the word.”

Wilson appears to be more than a little confused because ECOGRA or the eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance is a London-based NGO that oversees player protection, standards and operator conduct. As such it manages disputes, but in no way promotes responsible gambling, nor does it offer any education, outreach or counselling on gambling addiction. ECOGRA’s opening gambit for gamblers with a dispute is “please make certain that at least two weeks have passed since the problem began and all reasonable attempts have been made to negotiate a solution.”

That’s small solace if you’ve gambled away your house, your car, your spouse and your life, and you’re desperately looking for help to try to turn things around.

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皮格斯皮克比豪登省赌博委员会：织机的摊牌

网上赌场的业务暂时回高等法院提出上诉后裁决，禁止在南非在线赌博。在豪登省赌博委员会，但是，他们有一个强硬的对手，一个是不会手软。由曼迪德瓦尔。

虽然上诉程序仍处于初期阶段，豪登省赌博局已经在调查的权利，抓住从法官尼尔Tuchten的8月20日到2010年，应在网上赌场的上诉作出决定时都没有收益。而赌博委员会的目标不仅是网上赌场，但大家谁帮助方便网上赌博，包括银行，广告商和互联网服务提供商（ISP）。

“这是一切如常说：”反抗皮格斯皮克网上赌场获胜后提出上诉的权利是什么赌博的豪登省议会被称为“突破性的裁决”。法官下令Tuchten在线赌博在南非非法的，无论是否有赌博公司的服务器都位于这个国家之外。这项裁决不仅影响皮格斯皮克，但所有的在线赌博，包括西尔弗桑茨在线赌场和非洲宫喜欢。但是，执政党不包括体育赛事。

执政后直接皮格斯皮克和西尔弗桑茨关店，但只为只要用了皮格斯皮克寻求上诉许可。这项呼吁实现了赌博禁令，使网络赌场暂停行动继续下去。西尔弗桑茨和皮格斯皮克几乎立即重新开放，而非洲宫采取了更为谨慎的立场。关于非洲宫殿的网站公告指出，网上赌场“决定永久停止，直到在南非最高法院在非洲宫赌场所有赌场的活动作出最后决定在南非的在线赌博的南非球员的合法性。”

“这项裁决是反对我们，但上诉许可获批，这是一切如常，直至上诉敲定，”威尔逊说直径，营销皮格斯皮克赌场经理。威尔逊拒绝透露有多少运动员使用的在线赌博服务，但他表示，赌场的市场覆盖兰特共同货币区。 “基本上你是看南非，斯威士兰，纳米比亚和莱索托，”她说。

在豪登省赌博委员会的首席营运官爱德华Lalumbe说，像皮格斯皮克和西尔弗桑茨赌场赌博，并采取了可能面临的所有的成果自2010年8月20日没收。 “这不是一天结束。当网上赌场已经用尽了自己的权利，我们将呼吁没收并会抓住任何利益，他们在此期间收集后，原来的裁决。我们不能停留在这个阶段他们，但是他们将走之后，他们的律师的意见的风险。“

Lalumbe说，董事会将获得法律咨询，并会针对在网上赌博提供便利的所有球员。 “谁收益来自犯罪所得或在网上赌博的条文所涉及的一些方法，是将返回他们的活动得到的收益，如果发现网上赌博是非法的。我们知道基金在作怪，认为获取银行提出的钱。我们知道谁在那里做广告和宣传，我们又谁得到什么收益。“

该委员会认为，任何人谁可以帮助促进了非法交易，可能会没收请求负有责任。 “这基本上是谋杀。谁删除任何机构可以被追究责任。鉴于有组织犯罪法，使所有的人谁从非法活动的利润预防方面可被要求归还非法活动的利润。我们可以看到双方的冻结资产得到了很多，说：“Lalumbe。他补充说，如果互联网服务供应商都知道，穿越其网络内容是非法的，他们继续允许这种活动，他们也可能被视为非法活动的参与。

数字媒体的律师保罗雅各布森表示，董事会是在赌博的互联网服务供应商而言，是要达到“外包董事会的责任”互联网服务供应商。 “判决本身并没有提及供应商的服务的。赌博董事会正试图用这种权力包括假设ISP是便利，因此，在涉及非法活动的互联网服务供应商的判断。“

雅各布森说，赌博委员会不应试图让互联网服务供应商向警方在线赌博。 “该ECT的法令规定，一个盾牌互联网服务供应商发生这种情况的法律责任。互联网服务供应商不应该积极警察他们的网络，看看谁正在使用他们的网络或发生了什么事情在他们的网络上。互联网服务供应商仅仅作为渠道的数据和ECT的法令条款的行为，必须加以干预的要求根据该法的保护。“

这种情况是一个光滑的斜坡，可以看到在互联网服务供应商提出的所有要求，如果执行排序，Jacobson说，谁补充说：“今天，它是在线赌博，需要由ISP和明天的唱片业当局谁想要同类停止干预。在南非，而唱片业尝试这回一点点，但互联网服务供应商告诉他们忘记它。“

你可以打赌，很多本土广告机构和媒体所有者将密切关注该上诉的结果非常密切。皮格斯皮克，西尔弗桑茨和非洲宫殿是谁的人已被这些可怕的多尔夫隆格伦高频刺激侵略性广告的广告客户就可以证明数字卫星电视。早些时候，机构和媒体的房屋被要求撤出的豪登省赌博委员会警告说，谁严厉处罚将适用于那些谁无视警告广告材料。

Fin24引述委员会的法律服务，幸运Lukhwareni说谁在网上赌博广告的公司也将面对法律，如果罪名成立，最高可被罚款一百万元，到R10赛车在10年的监禁或两者头。

一个日期尚未为将在布隆方丹上诉法院审理的上诉设置，并作为摊牌织布机，在线赌博吸毒人数的增加是根据专家。 “我们都知道，网上赌博是一个日益严重的问题。目前，它构成了我们的呼声一小部分问题赌徒从接收，但是这是因为电脑提供给赌徒人数较少只在这个国家。随着互联网的日益普及和赌博蔓延到移动设备，我们将看到一个成瘾率在增加，“彼得说柯林斯，全国赌博责任计划执行董事。

赌博业后成立了本地的立法，监督的NRGP赌博成瘾的治疗和教育。它运行赌博辅导热线0800 006 008，以及在门诊和全国各地的门诊治疗中心。 NRGP没有对在该国赌博成瘾和科林斯称，4％，呼吁有关问题赌博的在线游戏程度的研究。他说，工业是R500的收入比一年多万元，并迅速增长。

“与线上赌博大因素是方便。你可以毫不费力的在线赌博的任何一天或晚上的时间，其实你几乎可以从你的床上赌博。这使得巨大的问题。另一个问题是，在线赌博业务之外的法律。“柯林斯呼吁网上赌博合法化，使其能够更好地进行调整。 “如果网络行业的监管，我们可以负责管理赌博的程序，因为有软件，能够实现在线赌博的。数字取缔赌博并不能使它消失，它只是使我们更难警察和办法进行规范。“

这充分表明当每日小牛问皮格斯皮克网上赌场什么程序，他们在促进负责任的赌博，以帮助网络游戏成瘾有关。 “我们已经制定了一个负责任的赌博系统，但它是内部监察，”威尔逊说。 “我们是eCOGRA的一部分。我不知道什么是主张或网址是什么，但你可以找到它，如果你谷歌的词。“

威尔逊似乎有点多，或困惑，因为eCOGRA的电子商务和网上博彩规例，并保证是伦敦的非政府组织之一，负责运动员的保护，标准和操作行为。因此，它管理的争端，但绝不提倡负责任的赌博，也没有提供任何教育，外展或赌博成瘾辅导。 eCOGRA的对与争端赌徒的开局是“请相信，至少有两个星期以来的问题开始，所有合理的努力作出了通过谈判解决。”

这是小的安慰，如果你赌离开你的房子，你的车，你的配偶和你的生活，和你拼命地寻求帮助，试图扭转局面。