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Judge David Harvey makes controversial ruling on online gaming website

Posted on July 12th, 2010

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Internet websites recently went buzzing on New Zealand. District Court Judge David Harvey ruled that an internet site and the TV show Asia Pacific Poker Tour which ran on local channels TV3 and C4 are in fact not promoting online gaming. Blog sites reacted intensely on this ruling, saying that in a groundbreaking ruling the New Zealand court has delivered a huge blow to opponents of online poker, and poker in general.

Some mentioned that “Though they may be an ocean away, the nation of New Zealand has fired a shot which could reverberate through the poker landscape.” Online gambling is considered illegal In New Zealand, however the law does not cover those living inside New Zealand that go to websites not created and maintained in the country and play there. The promoting of off-shore online gambling however, is also prohibited by the law. The case in question revolves around this kind of advertisement.

In April and May of 2007, advertisements for the an online poker site and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour were seen on the the TV show Celebrity Joker Poker, this was seen for several instances in C4 and in TV3. Rational Entertainment Enterprises sponsored the show, the same company that runs the pokerstars websites and also other online poker tournaments. 21 charges were filed by the Department of Internal Affairs against TV Works, the company that owns TV3 and C4 for running the TV ads.

The department argued that the TV network ran ads that either promotes an offshore gambling operator or ran ads that promotes locals to engage in gambling outside of New Zealand. “It is the prosecution case that the advertisements were de facto advertisements for pokerstars.com, using and emphasizing the brand name ‘pokerstars’” says the details of the Internal Affairs complaint. For the department, the use of the same name for the site under 2 different domains, constitutes the same thing.

Some blogs explain that this is a marketing strategy. They say many companies use .net versions of their sites to “help develop and teach beginner poker players utilizing their play money poker tables in the hopes that the player will eventually convert to the real money games”. This comes fro a site whose objective is to “help the average Joe become a winning, profitable Texas Hold em poker player.” The site further explains that since most countries prohibit the advertisements for gambling sites, most companies advertise their practice site or those under a .net domain.

Being considered as the most technologically savvy judge in the whole of New Zealand, Judge David Harvey is not new in making controversial calls with the law. Harvey is the one who handles most internet issues with the law. In 2008 he made a widely publicized ruling on not allowing websites to mention the names of 2 men involved in a murder case, while all forms of media can freely mention the names. While everyone did not seem to understand his reason behind the rule, Judge Harvey’s interest was to avoid the jury from reading all sorts of information about those involved in the murder, to avoid passing a contaminated jury vote. Harvey’s ban was turned eventually.

In this case, Judge Harvey does not agree with expert witness Professor Sarah Todd that said the names used for the sites may be misleading internet users to go to the .com version of the site when they intend to only go to the .net version. Harvey said that this mistake will be unlikely, since the audience are internet users familiar with navigating through different websites. Harvey also argued that the ads promoted a free playing site and that endorsers of the site even give commentaries that promote practicing for free which clearly promote a non-gambling site. In finality, Judge Harvey found that “the nature of the material in the advertisements made it clear that what was being advertised was free websites that do not involve gambling” and that “the navigational realities of the internet mean that there is a very significant difference between web addresses of any nature, be they .net, .com and .org even though they may be associated with a similar domain name.”