Is Canada about to follow the USA down the prohibition road?

A proposed bill in the Canadian province of Ontario would prevent advertising illegal online gaming sites in the province.

Online gaming is not regulated at the provincial level in Canada, and current enforcement of existing regulations has not been a priority. The proposed legislation would ban advertisements that promote online gaming sites. More importantly, enforcing this new law would take place at the provincial level, allowing Ontario to step up enforcement.

Passage of this bill will move Canada away from the British approach of regulating online gambling, and toward the U.S. philosophy of prohibition.

For a long time there’s been a concern among Canadians that their country is becoming too Americanized. For all of my poker playing friends north of the border, this would be a nice place to take a stand and model provincial policies after the British model than follow our ill-conceived attempt at prohibition.