For those of you who have been keeping up with the issue of poker in New Zealand, you will know that they have deemed at one time that poker was considered gambling. Many have gone about to fight this and a new ruling has come about. As of late, they have deemed that in the eyes of New Zealand, poker is no longer considered to be gambling.
Don’t get your hopes too high though. When you play online poker, there are many they consider to be gambling. However, those that are .net companies are said not to be promoting gambling. Here is a case where that came up and a judge had to decide if this was legal or not.
This has gone to court before the judge known as David J. Harvey. He heard the case against pokerstars.net and has found that they are not a threat to New Zealand. They don’t promote a certain gambling operator. They also don’t promote that those who live in New Zealand gamble overseas.
There were other things that he found not to be true. Some were saying that this pokerstars.net was linked to the pokerstars.com and that in conjunction they promoted gambling. Harvey has not found a direct link between the two which is why he also finds that it doesn’t promote gambling as well.
Last of all, with the APPT, he found that it doesn’t break the act. What he found was that it’s just like any other competition. You pay an entry fee. At the end of the game, you get money which is prize money. There are others where it’s all about how the end of the game goes. This is not the case.
Now, many of you might be wondering about what act Harvey was referring to. This act was the Gambling Act of 2003. This was started by the Department of Internal Affairs. What they have found is that pokerstars.net holds no threat and that people can indeed play poker on .net sites. What started out that this site had advertisements which promoted overseas gambling is not true any longer. The judge has dropped all charges and their online poker is said to be cleared to play. This might make a lot of people very happy including the company behind pokerstars.net.
While New Zealand is making strides to legalize some online poker playing sites, many other countries have banned them. Some of them only allow you to play .com or .net due to the practices of gambling which they promote. This is something that has been a controversial issue for many. Some might be confused as if online gambling is illegal in their country. However, one thing is for sure, gambling online has become a major thing which more and more are partaking in. many can see why as well. Many think that the ruling of David J. Harvey was a reasonable one and feel he made the right call while others somewhat wonder if it was the right call or not.