has been approached by lottery managing companies with proposals to use the Internet to run lotteries in much the same way as someone might use the telephone. With these, the Internet is simply used as a means of communication by which one person offers another a lottery ticket and that second person agrees to buy. Two such proposals have been approved but neither was yet operating at the time this note was produced.

There is one final point on the law. Although for instance it is illegal for someone here to set up Internet sites offering casino or bingo gaming, it is not illegal for a person resident here to take part in Internet gaming. Hence there is nothing unlawful in someone in Britain gaming on a site situated elsewhere in the world. And therein lies the nub of the problem. Casino or bingo gaming cannot be set up on the Internet in this country but residents here can play if it is offered elsewhere in the world. As mentioned earlier this is occurring increasingly.

It seems to the Board that there are three main policy options as regards the regulation of Internet gambling in Great Britain:

• retain the status quo

• encourage measures to prevent offshore Internet gambling in Great Britain

• legislate to permit regulated, and taxed, Internet gambling in Great Britain.

Retain the status quo The main arguments for this approach are, first, that the limited evidence so far available does not suggest any great use of Internet gambling opportunities in this country; and secondly that both the other two options are hard to implement. But the Board's preliminary view is that doing nothing will not remain a sustainable option for very long. The risk of proliferation of uncontrolled, unregulated and untaxed gambling on the Internet represents an obvious threat to this country's systems and values.