First Nations wading through gambling’s growing grey zone

portal. Otherwise, New Brunswick has not authorized online gambling in the province.”

Gamblers are free under Canadian law to bet on the thousands of websites reportedly based in Cyprus, the Isle of Man, and Gibraltar. That’s not illegal.

But it’s less clear whether offshore operators of online gaming websites are free to accept those bets from Canadians, advertise or ink contracts in Canada. That has not yet been settled with a precedent in Canadian courts.

That’s not stopping the Kahnawake Gaming Commission from doing a brisk business in online gaming.

That gaming commission, which was listed as having annual revenues of almost $796,000 in the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake’s 2016-2017 annual budget, has inked 20 deals with clients to host 99 online gaming websites. Marshall said the potential for the hosting and licensing of online gaming sites by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission is virtually unlimited.

The gaming commission’s legal counsel would not divulge how much of those gambling revenues stem from the gaming commission’s online gaming operations but claimed these have created roughly 250 direct and indirect jobs, many of them filled by band members.

“Licensing fees are intended to offset the costs of its operations,” said Marshall. “(The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake’s) Mohawk Internet Technologies charges its customers for the services it provides to them based on consumption of rack space, bandwidth and electricity.”

Although there are currently no First Nations communities in Atlantic Canada known to be actively working on the establishment of online gaming operations, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s management is interested in making that happen.

“We encourage and are willing to work with other First Nations in Canada and tribes in the United States who are interested in developing their economies through online gaming,” said Marshall.