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NNSL Photo/graphic

Back when the future of bingo looked rosy, Yellowknife Legion branch president Lloyd Lush, right, and Yellowknife resident Karen Jefferson are shown last week with her new online bingo website which was linked to the Legion's Friday and Sunday bingo games. The website has since been shut down by police. - Dorothy Westerman/NNSL photo

Bingo website illegal

Dorothy Westerman
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 09/05) - A website used for three weeks by the Yellowknife Royal Canadian Legion to expand its bingo audience was shut down last week by authorities who deemed it illegal.

"The legion has disassociated itself from the site," said Lorne Power, Legion manager.

Created by Yellowknife resident Karen Jefferson, daubers.ca made the Legion's twice-weekly bingo games available to players throughout the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Power and Legion president Lloyd Lush wouldn't comment further on the adventure with Internet gaming

"The Legion doesn't want to be associated with anything that may lead to criminal activity," Power said.

Cpl. Glen Demmon of the Yellowknife RCMP commercial crime unit said the website violated Criminal Code requirements that a lottery or a game of chance must have a licence to operate.

The Legion has a licence to hold its weekly bingo, but it requires that the game be played in a specific location, with a specific number of cards being used, Demmon said.

"Their licence is good for only in Yellowknife at that location," Demmon said.

Demmon said lotteries are regulated in Canada and obtaining a licence for such a website is not possible.

"Licences can only be issued for each region or geographical location," he said.

"With the Internet, you have no boundaries on that.

"If they wanted to get a licence, they would have to get a licence from every jurisdiction in the world or in North America. That's cost prohibitive," Demmon continued.

Although the website claimed to be specifically for Northerners to play Yellowknife bingo, Demmon said that claim was false.

"Once it is on the Internet, how do you control who participates? That's why online gambling is illegal. There are no regulations or licences available."

No online games found on the Internet originate from continental North America, he said.

"They are offshore, from the Bahamas or Bermuda or Cayman Islands because the United States has the same regulations when it comes to online gaming."

Charges are not pending, but the matter is still under investigation, Demmon said and noted that the city could bring charges under its bylaw.

Loretta Bouwmeester, Yellowknife manager of legal services,

and Doug Gillard, manager of municipal enforcement, declined comment.

"We're looking into the matter," Bouwmeester said.

As for the budding entrepreneurs who started up the website, Demmon said he does not believe they were aware of the regulations.

"I think it was them not knowing and coming up with a business enterprise that was probably a good idea, but I think they forgot to do their research," Demmon said.

Jefferson, the Yellowknifer who got the idea for the website after watching a webcast of curling, didn't want to discuss the shut-down.

"I think it's done, I really don't want to comment on it," Jefferson said.

The Yellowknife Legion was the only bingo operator that entered an agreement to access the website, which it saw as a way to boost sagging revenue.

Bingo is popular across the North, but Lush said last week that the Legion's revenue has dropped $400,000 since the city banned smoking in public buildings two years ago.

As required on the Legion's licence, 55 per cent of the profits from each bingo game go back to charities.

At the end of the last fiscal year in August, $331,000 in donations went back to the community from the Legion's gaming revenue.