worldwide. Even if thought desirable, it does not seem that it would be feasible to prevent British residents accessing the supply of such gambling. It seems better therefore to permit sites offering such gambling to be established in Great Britain. That would allow proper regulation and control and allow British operations the chance to share in the opportunities available.

Under this option, legislation would be needed to permit the certification/licensing of Internet casinos (and other gaming operations) based in Britain. The Board would then, as it does for conventional casinos, take responsibility for ensuring that all those granted a certificate are, and remain, fit and proper and have the financial wherewithal to operate the gaming. This is familiar territory for the Board and it does not envisage that it will present it with any special problems.

Less familiar to the Board will be the need both to test the software on the site to ensure that the gaming is fairly conducted (and therefore that players are not misled or cheated in any way) and to ensure a proper audit trail for all monies which flow through the site (in order to guarantee protection for stakes and winnings and to monitor any suspicious activity which might suggest attempts at money laundering). There are already commercial organisations elsewhere with the relevant expertise to conduct such testing and the Board would need to buy in this expertise. There would be resource costs but they could be recovered through fees paid by the certificated operators. One suggestion is that, once certificated, sites could carry a Board stamp of approval. Alternatively, and perhaps better, all certificated sites might be listed on a Board "portal" web site, which would give access to them and would avoid fraudulent use of the stamp of approval. In either case, the Board would need to monitor certificated sites to ensure that they continued to meet required standards.

If this option is to be pursued, there are a range of related issues which would need resolution and the Board's views on these are as follows.

The Board believes that certificated sites should not in principle be prevented from offering gaming to those resident abroad and therefore should not, as in some jurisdictions, be required to limit gaming just to domestic residents. The market is a global one and there do not seem to be any strong reasons why British operations >>