TeleCaster, a Canadian TV commercial clearing agency, says there's nothing illegal about a TV commercial advertising a play for free poker site, in response to critical questions from the Globe and Mail. The newspaper quoted an independent Internet consultant, who said that broadcasters should close this "loophole" that allows on-line poker rooms to advertise on Canadian television.
Apparently Canada's Criminal Code makes it illegal to advertise online gambling in Canada. It could be argued that poker is a game of skill, and not gambling, but even so, many poker rooms are not advertising their real money poker rooms on Canadian television. Instead they are promoting "play for free" sites, that often have the same domain name as the "real money" sites, but with a ".net" suffix instead of a ".com" suffix.
Rick Broadhead, a Toronto-based Internet consultant, was quoted by the Globe and Mail newspaper in saying: "They're making a mockery of the laws and the regulations here because what they've found is a loophole that allows them to advertise a site that is clearly -- in a covert kind of way -- promoting gambling with real money".
The Globe went on to test Broadhead's claim, and signed up to a few "play for free" sites. After asking by e-mail why they couldn't play for real money, they were referred by customer support to their "real money" counterparts.
TeleCaster is Canada's self-regulatory agency for screening TV commercials before being aired, and it's part of the Television Bureau of Canada. The CEO of TeleCaster, Jim Patterson, defended the legality of "play for free" poker commercials, and commented: "If the commercial says go to Interpoker.net and play for free . . . then there's nothing illegal about that. If a person makes a mistake and goes to another site, it's not really our responsibility".