For some months now (see previous InfoPowa reports) a war of words has been going on after the Italians arbitrarily enacted a blockade of 684 internet gaming sites back in February. 68 of the sites were licensed by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority. In a bid to bypass the blockade, the LGA linked its website to all the Maltese gaming sites using a web anonymiser that disguises the websites’ IP addresses.

Now the Italians have upped the ante by blacking out the Lotteries and Gaming Authority’s official website – the last remaining link to Italian gaming sites registered in . The LGA website is now no longer accessible from Italian territory, after ’s state administration for monopolies, the AAMS, warned the site had no authorisation to collect bets and blocked it from Italian ISPs..

LGA chief executive Mario Galea, who at the time was in addressing the European Forum of Gaming Regulators, made a strong statement criticising the Italian action to delegates: “We cannot accept that the good, the bad and the ugly are thrown in the same basket. ’s websites are regulated by the official Maltese authority,” Galea said.

The blockade action started when the Italian government blocked all foreign gaming sites from the to , claiming it was protecting Italian gamers from “phishing” – the fraudulent acquisition of passwords and credit card details.

Threats of legal action under European Union law were made by major international gambling groups, and critics of the Italian move said that the real motive was to protect the Italian government's  EUR 1.8 billion gambling monopoly. In the confusing legal melee that followed, a Malta licensee, Astrabet was initially successful (see previous InfoPowa reports) in obtaining a ruling that the blockade be lifted in its case, but this has apparently since been revoked by an Italian appeals court after a further challenge by the AAMS.

However, while the appeal by AAMs was accepted, the request for a suspension of the ruling was not, which means that technically access to Astrabet should be open to Italians - it is not.

Italian ISPs have little choice in the matter when the AAMS adds new sites to its blockade list - any Italian ISP that does not comply risks a daily fine of EUR 180 000.

is awaiting a response from the European Commission on it's investigations into whether infringement procedures should be commenced against . The European Commission has apparently requested information from the Italians on the restrictions imposed on online betting and gaming and the justification for these.