Sri Lanka moves against unlicensed online gambling sites, but technology may make blocking them considerably easier than keeping them blocked
COLOMBO, Saturday – Sri Lanka has stepped up its campaign against unlicensed online gambling, with the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission instructing telecommunications service providers to block websites identified by the Gambling Regulatory Authority as operating without the required licence.
The latest action follows the establishment of a new regulatory regime intended to bring gambling, including its rapidly expanding online component, within a more coherent system of licensing and supervision. Operating or promoting online gambling services without the appropriate licence is now an offence, giving regulators considerably greater authority to move against operators targeting Sri Lankan customers.
The intervention is important because online gambling has expanded far faster than the regulatory structures traditionally used to control gaming. A website operated thousands of kilometres from Colombo can accept Sri Lankan customers, advertise through social media and process payments without maintaining the sort of physical presence that once allowed regulators to identify and police gambling businesses relatively easily.
Blocking access is therefore the obvious first response. It is not necessarily the final answer. Websites can change domains, mirror their operations through alternative addresses and employ technological methods intended to circumvent restrictions, leaving regulators engaged in what can become a continuing game of digital cat and mouse.
There is also the question of money. If the Government is serious about restricting unlicensed gambling, enforcement cannot end at the telecommunications gateway. Regulators will need to examine how payments are being made, whether local banking or electronic-payment facilities are being used and how winnings are transferred back to customers in Sri Lanka.
That becomes particularly important when licensed and unlicensed gambling exist alongside each other. The purpose of regulation should not simply be to make gambling disappear from a computer screen, but to distinguish clearly between operators prepared to comply with Sri Lankan law and those seeking Sri Lankan customers while remaining outside its licensing, taxation and consumer-protection framework.
The wider public-interest question concerns the protections offered to gamblers themselves. An unlicensed overseas operator may accept deposits from Sri Lanka with relative ease, but a customer who is denied winnings or whose account is suddenly closed may discover that there is effectively nobody within the country against whom a meaningful complaint can be made.
Sri Lanka therefore has good reason to regulate this market aggressively. But effective regulation will require coordination between the Gambling Regulatory Authority, telecommunications providers, banks, payment platforms, law-enforcement agencies and advertising regulators rather than relying upon website blocking alone.
The success of the exercise should consequently not be measured by the number of addresses placed on a blocked list. It should be measured by whether unlicensed operators can continue to collect Sri Lankan money and market themselves to Sri Lankan customers despite appearing on that list.
Be that as it may, blocking the front door is useful. The real test is whether the authorities are equally capable of finding the side doors that inevitably open next.
