Section 4: Remote gambling
35.The Act contains specific provisions concerned with the regulation of the various technological means by which gambling activities can now be conducted. The Act adopts the concept of “remote gambling” to cover gambling where the participants are not face to face on the same premises.
36.This section defines “remote gambling” to mean gambling where people are participating by means of “remote communication”. The types of remote communication by which people may participate in remote gambling are:
the internet;
telephone;
television;
radio; or
any other kind of electronic or other technology for facilitating communication.
37.This list encompasses modern means of communication such as interactive television and mobile telephony, and is able, by virtue of subsection (2)(e), to ensure that the definition keeps pace with future developments in this field. However, in order to ensure clarity as well as flexibility for the regulation of gambling, the Secretary of State may specify in regulations that a specified system or method of communication is, or is not, to be treated as a form of remote communication for the purpose of the definition.