QUEBEC MOVING IN ON MOHAWKS?

30 November 2007

Kahnawake's resident cybercasino giant fined for illegal gaming


Reports on Canada's CBC yesterday (Thursday) appear to confirm earlier speculation that the Quebec provincial government has been building a case for more enforcement on Internet gambling activity in the First Nation enclave of Kahnawake, the licensing home to hundreds of online casinos and less than an hour's drive from Montreal.

The CBC reported that the company that administers one of the world's largest internet casinos — Golden Palace.com — has pleaded guilty in Quebec to charges of illegal gambling in a case that challenges the claimed First Nations' right to grant gaming licences to companies on its servers.

According to the Canadian Criminal Code, only the provincial government is authorised to award gaming licences, and this apparently prompted Quebec police to raid the Montreal-area offices of Golden Palace.com more than a year ago as part of its investigation.

In September this year the Cyber World Group, which administers Golden Palace through a server located on the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve, pleaded guilty to two charges and is required to pay a $2 million fine.

CBC claims that the charges laid against the virtual casino are a first for Quebec, and challenge the Mohawk's claim to have the authority to regulate and award gaming licences.

The First Nation tribal lands are home to sophisticated Internet hosting facilities managed by Mohawk Internet Technology that handle hundreds of online gambling sites - a highly successful business for the tribe. Recent claims by tribal leaders have it that 60 percent of the world's online gambling traffic runs through its servers.

The Mohawks argue that the protection of traditional native rights enshrined in section 35 of the Canadian Constitution gives them the right to provide hosting for the online casinos that it claims to license and regulate. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission has already awarded 443 permits without any provincial interference, Joe Delaronde, a member of the Kahnawake band council told CBC.

The charges and fines are part of a wider jurisdictional battle between the Mohawk community and the provincial and federal Canadian governments, he added.

"We don't ask for anything," he said earlier this week. "We tell them that this is our right to do this. And we're doing it properly, we're administering it properly — the world seems to think that we're doing a good job, and we're confident we'll continue to do a good job."

Toronto-based gaming lawyer Michael Lipton said that the charges and fines could set a precedent for Mohawk-issued gaming licences. "[The issue has] never been settled in court, and you might say it's a bit of a grey area," he told CBC News. "So that's where the Kahnawake Mohawks get their strength from, and that's what they're doing."

But the charges and fines reflect the government's decreased tolerance for online gaming, he said.

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