One of the few remaining members of the EU that has an online gambling monopoly, Norway has taken steps to pass legislation that would require internet service providers (ISPs) to block foreign sites from Norwegians. Instead they will be redirected.
The government has been discussing implementing this measure for two years.
This new modification was introduced in the proposed amendments to Norway’s Gambling Act by the Ministry of Culture and Equality on October 20, Casino.org reported.
Minister Lubna Jaffery said this wouldn’t have been needed if gaming operators had obeyed Norwegian law.
One such company that finally gave up the fight was Kindred, which after fighting for years, finally left Norway’s space in September.
In the meantime the government renewed the monopoly of Norsk Rikstoto for another 10 years about a year ago.
Casino.org noted that DNS blockers don’t always work as hoped for. It pointed out that such blockers can be bypassed, often by using alternative DNS servers.
Another way to outwit DNS blockers is through Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which encrypt the user’s internet connection and directs it through another location, hiding the IP address.
That’s not to say that DNS blockers don’t work at all. Their success rate, said Casino.org, “is much greater than its failure rate.”
