The Superior Court of Justice of the Canadian province of Ontario has stated the validity of the online gaming regulation, having entered into force in 2021.
Subject to the proceedings were proceedings instigated by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, an independent Native-American territory, claiming the regulatory initiative to be violating constitutional provisions.
The Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake has, since around 25 years, issued gambling licenses by its regulatory Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), allowing operators to accept players from, inter alia, the Canadian provinces. The regulation of Ontario as Canada’s largest gambling market has raised economic and legal concerns on the side of Kahnawake, as constituting a major thread to the territory’s gambling licensing regime and a crackdown on the international economic activities of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake.
With the recent ruling, the Superior Court has now put an end to a legal saga that, as critics claimed, was purely financially motivated from the beginning. The position of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake has always been that the regulatory approach of Ontario lawmakers violated the rights of the people of Kahnawake and their freedom to economic activity.
Whether the ruling will actually impact on the practice of issuing gambling licenses and allowing KCG-licensees to accept players from the Canadian provinces is not yet foreseeable, neither whether the Mohawk Council will seek redress at the Canadian Federal Courts now.
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Quelle: Chevron Consultants