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Scott, Colin --- "Between the Old and the New: Innovation in the Regulation of Internet Gambling" [2005] ELECD 362; in Black, Julia; Lodge, Martin; Thatcher, Mark (eds), "Regulatory Innovation" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005)

Book Title: Regulatory Innovation

Editor(s): Black, Julia; Lodge, Martin; Thatcher, Mark

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845422844

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Between the Old and the New: Innovation in the Regulation of Internet Gambling

Author(s): Scott, Colin

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

6. Between the old and the new:
innovation in the regulation of
Internet gambling
Colin Scott

INTRODUCTION

The takeoff of the Internet in the mid-1990s, linked to the development of the
World Wide Web, has spawned a wide variety of new practices and applica-
tions of computing for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. These
social and economic innovations have raised a variety of new challenges for
governments, destabilizing, to some extent, state interests not only in regula-
tion and law enforcement, but also taxation. Gambling on the Internet presents
these challenges in a particularly acute form. The state is central to the nature
of the market, and the existence, shape and activities of the (legal) market are
determined by the regulatory framework to an extent which is unusual with
other market activities (Collins 2003, p. 1). The destabilization effects are thus
likely to be high. Paradoxically, perhaps, there is a high degree of dependence
on non-state actors to provide solutions to regulatory problems (Scott 2004).
In this chapter we investigate the regulatory response to the challenges
presented by the Internet to public policy in the area of remote gaming. We
compare the recent policy history of three jurisdictions, New York State,
Australia and the UK and use this comparison to elaborate on the analysis of
the nature of regulatory innovation. Innovation to meet new policy conditions
might be explicable by reference to the capacities of key actors to consider the
various options and put the best solutions ...