Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Israel has effectively banned online poker and casino websites from offering
services to Israeli customers following a court case ruling against Victor
Chandler's CEO Michael Carlton. The new ruling closes a legal uncertainty
that online gambling companies previously operated in. "A foreign company
operating an online gambling site may not hide behind the fact that the
company and its servers sit in another country, and it is breaking the law
if does not block access to Israelis," Judge Abraham Heiman said. Israel has
become increasingly perturbed with Gibraltar-based Victor Chandler's
presence in Israel as they sought to challenge the state-run gambling
monopoly that operates there. Last year Victor Chandler embarked on an
aggressive advertising campaign in Israel that offered greatly improved
incentives than the state-run services. Accordingly, Israel swiftly became
the second largest market for Victor Chandler. And as such has since caused
much concern for Israeli authorities, culminating in Carlton being detained
in Tel Aviv in January.