MONTREAL – Quebec is the latest government to consider a ‘regulate and tax’ plan for online poker.
If Loto-Québec’s proposal is approved, Quebec could be playing government-approved poker online by next summer.
Alain Cousineau, Loto-Québec’s President and CEO announced the plan to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal on 17 November. He spoke of the “irreversible” international trend toward online gambling, pointing toward the gaming corporations of Norway, Finland, and Sweden.
Loto-Québec generated $1.4 billion in profit for the Quebec government over the most recent fiscal year, despite a decade marked by significantly less growth — a consequence, Cousineau, of market maturity and increased international competition.
Under the proposed plan, Loto-Québec would partner with British Columbia and the Atlantic Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland & Labrador), all of whom already regulate and tax a certain amount of Internet gambling. Canadian online wagers totaled around $675 million last year, and are anticipated to pass the $1 billion mark sometime in the next two years.
Cousineau concluded: “It’s in the interests of Quebec society that the provincial gaming corporation process some of that money.”
