Norwegian culture minister Anniken Huitfeldt is said to be actively considering the blocking of online casinos with foreign ISPs. This move is believed to be a measure against the increase in popularity of foreign online gambling ventures. These sites are taxed in the country of their provenience. Therefore, they aren’t contributing with any income to the Norwegian treasury.
A survey made by Norsk Tipping reports that around 4% of people over the age of 18 are actively gambling at foreign online casinos. The study has also been forwarded to the culture minister, who claims that unregulated online gambling needs to be eliminated from the country.
“We want to consider using filtering IP addresses against gambling companies that are undesirable in Norway. Such measures have been successfully used in Italy, Estonia and France, and the concept has found favour in Denmark” Anniken Huitfeldt explained.
On the other hand, many online gambling supporters and liberal media trusts agree that blocking foreign online casinos is impossible. People will always find methods to go around ISP blocks. They believe that a measure like this would be similar to internet censorship.
Liberal publication Liberalen commented that “The proposal breaks completely with the liberal values that should be bipartisan consensus in Norway”. Liberal politician Ove Vanebo criticized the proposal, saying that similar measures always failed in other countries.
