Have Internet Gambling sites ever been blocked anywhere?

[archmagi]

Just read in a paper that, while trying to find ways to stop internet gambling, a Turkish government agency asked the ISPs if they can block access to the internet gaming sites. The ISPs responded that this is possible, while it poses many technical problems and performance issues.

I was just wondering if, to your knowledge, this has been done anywhere before? I don't think they will be able to pull it off, but if they do it might create an example for other countries.

As an additional note... apparently one of the proposals given to this agency was to legalise internet gambling rather than try to stop it.

[Duckstabber]

I think something like that has been done in Thailand, but I'm not sure.

[Wabby]

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[archmagi]

Thx,
I had a look, but couldn't find the exact source of info yet. Even though some pages are available in English, not all are. Will look into it in greater detail later.

In the mean time, out of curiousity, did you find any ways around it?

[Wabby]

Just a few sites are blocked. You can play at the rest :-)

But I heard theres a way around it. Should be easy if you bother.

[Duckstabber]

I tried to place a bet at Bet365 when I was i Bangkok but got the same message as Wabby. I had no trouble with Pinnacle though.

[archmagi]

looks like it's easier to said than done then.
with so many sites no wonder they can't cover all.

[Keith Fellmy]

I sure hope they don't stop the Turkish players. We need them for our bottom line. How many players here have ever lost to a Turkish player. They, for the most part, don't have a clue about how to play.

[archmagi]

maybe not, but I know that many have lost to a player who plays from Turkey /images/graemlins/cool.gif
most suck at holdem. but that's because they only play 5 card draw.
trust me, if they start playing holdem as good as they play 5 draw, that will cause some headaches.