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The province’s gaming authority had the precise to arrange a web-based playing web site, Alberta’s highest court docket dominated Friday, upholding a decrease court docket ruling.
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A 3-member Alberta Courtroom of Enchantment panel dismissed a problem by Tsuu T’ina Gaming and others to the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Hashish Fee’s determination to create PlayAlberta in 2020.
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The appellants argued that Decide Robert Armstrong erred in his February 24, 2022 determination upholding the fee’s approval of the web playing web site.
Among the many arguments raised by the gaming entities on the Tsuut’ina Nation on the southwest fringe of Calgary was that Armstrong erred to find that the fee had the statutory authority beneath the Gaming Act to function a web-based on line casino trade that’s accessible to desktop and cell units all through the province.
The attraction judges famous that the Legal Code says all lotteries and video games of likelihood are unlawful, however units out exceptions that embrace provincial governments working and managing approved lottery schemes.
“Importantly, inside (the Legal Code) is a distinction between a provincial authorities, which may function and handle a provincially approved lottery scheme, and others that require provincial approval and licensing,” they mentioned.
The Playing, Liquor and Hashish Act says tthe fee “might conduct and handle provincial lotteries on behalf of the federal government of Alberta,” the attraction judges famous of their written ruling.
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“In abstract, a province is entitled to implement and handle a provincially approved lottery scheme. Such a scheme is permitted in Alberta as a ‘provincial lottery,’” they mentioned.
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“That is totally different from a lottery scheme for which a non-governmental entity is permitted by a playing license to function a ‘playing exercise’ on licensed premises, or is licensed for on-site VLTs in approved institutions. The aim of the provincial authorities’s ‘provincial lottery’ is to lift funds for basic income.”
The Tsuut’ina Nation and Stoney Nakoda First Nation launched a problem to PlayAlberta in April 2021, arguing that it was an “unauthorized entry” into Alberta’s on line casino and gaming market by the regulator and provincial authorities.
KMartin@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @KMartinCourts
